


two-faced son of a bitch

by socknonny



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Dom/sub Undertones, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Good versus Evil, Healing Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Internal Conflict, Internalized Homophobia, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Praise Kink, Rope Bondage, Self-Hatred, Shame, Weird Angelic "good" face, Weird Macabre Gruesome "bad" face
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:40:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22593409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socknonny/pseuds/socknonny
Summary: Billy died on the operating table, but he didn't stay dead. Which would be just peachy except he's come back different... When he looks in the mirror, it isn't his own face that greets him. Instead, a twisted, horrifying, rotten piece of shit stares back.No one else can see it, but it's who he's always been.Rotten to the core.But then he runs into Steve Harrington, and another face emerges. This time, it's the face of an angel...
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 12
Kudos: 108
Collections: Harringrove Big Bang 2019





	two-faced son of a bitch

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to the mods for organizing this fest! I needed a push to finish one of my longer Harringrove ideas, and it was so fun having this project to come back to throughout last year.  
> Huge thanks to feversxmirrors!!! Your artwork is STUNNING. I'm beyond awed to see Billy's faces come to life, and will forever picture them in my head the way you've drawn them. And your beta flailing as you read through the fic was so encouraging and helpful!! Thanks so much for being the best BB partner ever <3
> 
> (artwork can be found [here, on feversxmirrors tumblr!](https://feversxmirrors.tumblr.com/post/190790513360/inspired-by-socknonny-s-amazing-fic-for-the%22))

Billy stares into the mirror, hands clenched tight around the basin. He’s avoided mirrors for so long, ever since the doctors revived him against all odds, and now… His worst fears are correct. Every time he caught sight of himself earlier, in the reflection of a window or the hospital mirror he’d covered poorly with a discarded robe, it wasn’t his messed up mind making him think things that weren’t true, it was real. It was fucking real, and he doesn’t know what to do.

The reflection that stares back at him with cold, dead eyes isn’t human. Sallow skin wraps gaunt across his cheekbones, and the wrinkles of crow’s feet beside his eyes show a hint of peeling. The tint of blue to his face is absent only in his eyes, which are the darkest black. He’s rotting from the inside out, and the worst part is, it has nothing to do with the thing that took over his body in July. No, because Billy recognises this face. 

It’s the face that haunted his dreams every night as a boy. The face he caught glimpses of in mirrors and the ocean—water far too still to be anything but a dream, but six year old boys don’t know that. They feel the fear like any other threat. Like it’s real. And when they wake up and the fear doesn’t leave, it becomes real.

The doctors say he died on the operating table, just for a few seconds. He wonders, now, if death was what it took for his true self to emerge. Because Billy knows this face, knows it better than any other, truer than any truth in the entire world. This is his face, how he looks inside: wretched, diseased, unloving and unloved.

Because Billy is rotten to the core. And now, the truth is staring him right in the face.

* * *

Steve props his chin on his hand and tries not to fall asleep at the desk. Sure, it’s been his experience so far at Melvald’s that managers don’t really care what he does, but he doesn’t want to test that by _actually_ falling asleep. Joyce’s recommendation for him to replace her went a long way, but everything has a limit. His eyes waver shut, and his chin jolts forward, heavy onto his fist.

“Shit,” he mumbles under his breath, slamming his palm down on the bench and forcing himself to sit up straight. “Oh, this is bad.”

The words come out slurred and unfocused. It’s to be expected, but it still irritates him. The problem is, he hasn’t been sleeping lately. Not for months, actually, if he doesn’t count two hours at a time while gripping his bat so hard he wakes with indents of nails pressed into his leg. Which he doesn’t, because he’s not a maniac, and anyone who counts that as sleep deserves the nails.

He crosses and uncrosses his legs, adjusting his seat on the pile of unopened toilet paper boxes he dragged out from the back. They’ll be a little bent after this, but he’ll stick a _sale_ sign on them and the crowds will flock, stocking up on extras they wouldn’t have bought at all if they hadn’t got their toilet paper at a ten percent discount.

This is why he loves Melvalds. There are no mistakes. Convenience and friendliness, that’s all he has to do. Nothing has to be perfect; he doesn’t have to wear a stupid hat; they love him for his solutions instead of judging him for his problems. If Steve isn’t careful, he could wind up on a pension plan, which would really piss his dad off and only makes him love the place more.

The bell above the door jingles, and Steve pastes on his friendly _I-swear-I’m-not-falling-asleep_ smile and turns to greet the customer. But the guy has already moved away, into the shelves, baseball cap slung low over his eyes like he’s hungover or doesn’t want to be bothered, and so Steve shrugs and turns back to the till. 

There’s nothing else to do in here, so even though he doesn’t really mean to, he watches the guy out of the corner of his eye. There’s something kind of… off about him. Like he’s drunk or high, but he isn’t stumbling all over the place and he doesn’t act like he’s shoplifting, so it’s probably just a case of crossed wires. Besides, Steve’s still half asleep.

The bell jingles again, and a woman with long blonde curls who’s dressed like Stevie Nicks enters. Steve greets her—he thinks he sees the guy look up suddenly at the sound of Steve’s voice—and tries to look convenient and friendly. After a few minutes, both of them approach the counter at the same time, and Steve realises with a jolt of shock that the guy is Billy.

A single curl escapes what must be a haphazard pile beneath the baseball cap, but it’s the only recognisable thing about him. He’s wearing Hawkins High sweatpants and a matching sweater, concealing both his frame and unique, sunkissed skin, and his eyes meet Steve’s with an expression all too close to panic.

“Er,” Steve says slowly, rendered mute by the bizarre sight.

Billy arrived at the counter before the woman, which means Steve probably won’t get any answers for Billy’s state of dress since he can’t ask with her there. And honestly, that kills him a bit. He’s hardly even seen Billy in the two weeks since Billy returned from the military hospital, restored to normal after facing down the monster and saving El—saving them all, since they were undoubtedly next. Steve’s brain races, trying to think of an excuse he can provide for the woman to cut ahead so he can get Billy alone, but he can’t think of one.

Billy shifts his feet, edgy and restless, and his eyes follow Steve’s frantic gaze, cutting to the woman behind him. He frowns in confusion. There’s a second where Steve thinks, deliriously, that the two could be mother and son. The woman’s hair is the picture of Billy’s curls—when they’re not hidden by a cap—and even their faces are similar. They have the same cute button nose, and—

Steve halts in his tracks, eyes wide even though he didn’t say it out loud. Still. What the fuck.

But then he sees Billy’s expression—the ache of sadness and vulnerability shockingly clear on his face. Billy clears his throat and steps backwards, waving his hand towards the counter. “You go first,” he rasps, voice rough like he hasn’t spoken in a while. “You don’t have much.”

He steps behind the woman, smiling tightly as he gestures to his full basket before eyeing the single magazine in the woman’s hand. 

Why didn’t Steve think of that?”

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you!” The woman beams at him, her whole face lighting up. “What a gentleman you are.”

Steve chokes on his saliva at the concept of _Billy_ and _gentleman_ making their way into the same sentence, and struggles valiantly to disguise it as a cough. He rings her up, tells her about upcoming sales, stamps her loyalty card, and cheerily says goodbye.

But when he turns to Billy, every question that’s been bursting to come out of his mouth since he saw Billy dies at the back of his throat.

“Dude,” he chokes out, staring at Billy’s face. “Dude, you’re—”

Billy shrinks in on himself, the shy pride he had been wearing since the woman complimented him morphing instantly into horror.

“No,” he breathes. “You can see it?” He launches himself across the counter, his basket dropping to the floor with a clatter, and catches Steve by the lapel, drawing him close. “What do you see, Harrington? Can you see it?” His voice catches, eyes desperate. “Am I rotting?”

“No!” Steve shakes his head, unable to look away from the sight before him. “No, man, you’re _glowing_.” 

Billy’s face twists into confusion, but even that isn’t enough to detract from the sheer beauty Steve is witnessing. He wonders, the thought tinged even in his own head with hysteria, if this is what it’s like to look into the face of an angel. Billy’s eyes have always been captivating—a striking blue Steve has rarely seen in anyone else. But now they’re radiant. Steve wants nothing more than to stare into those eyes, which seem to see right through him to his very soul, forever. The single curl that escapes Billy’s cap is dirty blond only in the most literal explanation; in reality, it radiates with an inner, golden light—just like the rest of Billy’s face and sunkissed skin.

Moving as if in a dream, Steve reaches forward to tug the baseball cap away by the brim. In its absence, golden curls cascade down around Billy’s face like a mane. Like a crown. He’s the most beautiful fucking person Steve has ever seen.

He doesn’t realise he’s said it out loud until Billy chokes, eyes bugging out of his head, and stumbles backwards.

“ _What_?” he snarls, but the exclamation lacks true bite, and after a second, Billy lurches forward again. “Gimme your mirror,” he mutters, hands roaming a little too intimately over Steve’s pockets.

“What?” Steve snaps.

“Your mirror!” Billy is yelling now, eyes frantic. “I know you’ve got one, you vain shithead, give me your mirror!”

Steve shoves Billy away and steps backwards, but he reaches under the counter and retrieves the mirror stashed behind the receipt rolls. He hands it to Billy.

Billy snatches it and turns away. The line of his shoulders stiffens, his entire body folding in on itself. Steve edges sideways to see what Billy sees, and even in the mirror, Billy is glowing, radiant.

“What the—” Billy breathes, but this time it doesn’t sound like an accusation. It sounds like hope.

Steve looks away, still stunned and confused, and his eyes land on Billy’s basket. Noodles, beef jerky, first aid kit, toilet paper, road map… Steve frowns. No one who lives at home needs those things. 

Suddenly, Billy’s disguise almost makes sense. Is he running away from Hawkins?

Before Steve can ask, Billy turns back.

“I need your help, pretty boy,” Billy mutters. “It’s your lucky day.”

“It’s my what now?”

Billy doesn’t explain any further. He drops the mirror back on the counter, where it clatters, almost shattering but falling still at the last second.

“Meet me at the abandoned shop down the end of the strip at eight, tonight,” Billy says.

And then he’s walking out of the store, leaving his basket on the ground. Even from a distance, the glow of his face is visible. Steve watches the golden curls, gleaming in the sun, until they disappear from sight. He passes several people on the way down the street, but none of them look at him strangely, almost like they can’t even see it.

* * *

Billy stares intently into every shop window he passes, desperate to catch a glimpse of the face he’d seen at Melvald’s. But the further he goes from the store—and from Harrington—the more the glow fades from his skin. He stops at the last occupied store in the strip, the arcade, and stares himself down.

Bright blue eyes stare back, and then, slowly, the blue deepens. Turns black. His skin droops from his cheeks, and it’s hideous, disgusting, awful, but he can’t look away. The flesh above his upper lip curls in on itself, revealing a hint of bone. It’s metal as fuck, and he’s more terrified than he’s ever been in his life. 

His reflection shatters as an entirely new face presses up against the glass, blowing suckerfish faces against it. He stumbles backwards, confused in the long seconds it takes for him to recognise Max, and then he forces himself to smile. It’s stilted and tinged with an emptiness that is the closest he can get to an absence of rage, but so are all their interactions since he died and came back to Max crying over him in the hospital bed. They’re trying. They’re getting there.

She peels away from the glass and disappears for a few seconds—reappears at the door ten feet to his left. It swings out with a clatter, and suddenly she’s in front of him, all giddy excitement and desperation-tinged love.

They’re trying. They’re getting there.

“Hey, shitbird,” he mumbles, shoving his hands in his pockets and ignoring the crowd of lemmings that bob in the background—one, two, three heads appearing around the door. They don’t trust him yet, and Billy hopes they never do. He has no interest in befriending fourteen year olds; Max is more than enough.

“You wanna come in?” Max gestures to the arcade machines through the window. “They’ve got Pitfall two.”

“Shit, keep your voice down,” Billy hisses, but it’s too late. The three gremlins in the background visibly perk up, looking between each other in shock.

Max grins, because she’s a shit and far too much of Billy has rubbed off on her. “What?” she asks, raising her voice. “You mean, you don’t want everyone to know you had the high score back in San Diego?” 

Billy can actually _hear_ them saying _no way_ under their breath. He groans. Sure, he used to join Max at the arcade before… things got worse. _He_ got worse. But that was a long time ago. Things change. Sometimes, they can’t change back.

“Please,” Max injects a deliberate whine into her voice, eyes still smug, knowing she’s winning. “I haven’t seen you in days.”

After he got back from the hospital, Max wouldn’t leave his side, and after the things he’s seen and done, Billy lacked the energy to fight it. Besides, it was nice to have someone to play Chinese Chequers with. Someone to talk to when he was still trying to convince himself it was all over and the world wouldn’t suddenly shift on him again, dumping him in that cold place where everything felt so far away.

It was nice to have a sister, and his gut twinges as he realises he was about to leave her without even saying goodbye, after everything she’d done for him. He was going to pack up and run away just because of a face in the mirror. What a piece of shit, what an absolute piece of shit.

“Not today, Max,” he says quietly, and the apology in his voice is real. “But I can come back tomorrow?”

The smile had been falling from her face, but it reappears now, twice as blinding. “Can’t do tomorrow,” she says, suddenly looking shifty. “But the next day?”

A flurry of barely concealed complaints emerges from the peanut gallery, but this time it just makes him grin even wider.

“See you then, boys,” he calls to them cheerfully.

Max cackles, and yeah, he’s definitely rubbed off on her. It’s his proudest achievement.

He lets them scurry back inside, tripping over each other to get back to the machines, and continues down the strip to the empty shop he asked Steve to meet him at. Steve doesn’t know, but Billy lives above the shop. He forks out well below average rent, considering the only thing preventing the building from being condemned is some kind of ongoing heritage fight at the council, and he finally has a place of his own. 

Living with Neil after everything that had happened wasn’t an option. Not because Billy was afraid of Neil; he was afraid of what he’d do when Neil tried to return them to the dynamic they’d always lived by. Living out his life in jail isn’t part of Billy’s grand plan.

Still, he’d only been in this place for two days—hadn’t even unpacked a bag—when he caught sight of his own reflection and knew it wasn’t over. The monster in his head might be gone, but its presence had brought forth something far worse. If there’s any chance at all that Steve Harrington holds the answer to fixing that—however nonsensical that thought is—Billy is latching on with both hands and refusing to let go.

He takes a seat on the stoop, just inside the alcove of the shop entry. The staircase leading to Billy’s area is in the little alleyway down the side, but Steve doesn’t need to know that yet. Not until Billy is sure he can help. Billy could wait upstairs—there’s still twenty minutes before Steve is due—but he’s too restless, too energised.

And, although he doesn’t want to admit it, he can’t chance seeing his own reflection now the golden light has gone and left Billy’s true face in its place.

* * *

When Steve leaves work, he has to duck into an alley to avoid running into his mom, who always visits the hairdresser late afternoon on a Tuesday. It isn’t that he doesn’t like his mom, but he’s been avoiding her for about three weeks now, and leaving work to visit his high school nemesis isn’t the moment to break that streak.

It’s always like this when his parents return from vacation. His dad expects a full report of everything that’s happened in their absence, and his mom tries to mother him. Steve can’t quite pinpoint when his adoration of those nurturing moments—such a stark contrast to the ritualistic report he’d deliver, straight-backed, in his father’s study—turned into avoidance. But ever since high school, he’s made a point to get his report over quickly and then escape, leaving early and returning home too late for his mom to fuss over him or check in on him or expect him to share any of the things going on in his life.

Because he doesn’t want to share. He doesn’t want to tell her what’s new in his life, only for the information to be met with the same doe-eyed affection and support he’d get from a distant aunt asking about his girlfriend and studies over Christmas lunch. So, when he sees her blonde perm appearing at the other end of the street, he practically legs it towards the run-down end of the shopping strip.

When he arrives at the corner, he slows down and rounds it cautiously, wondering why Billy picked here of all places to meet, and if it was all just a joke. But his eyes land on Billy immediately; he’s the only thing within twenty yards that isn’t peeling or falling apart. Seriously, the buildings down this end of the strip should be condemned.

He lifts a hand and walks towards the figure hunched over in the entryway. Billy twitches two fingers in what must be the shittest wave Steve’s ever seen, and waits. He isn’t glowing anymore, and the sharp clench of disappointment in Steve’s gut should probably take him by surprise, but it doesn’t.

“Hey,” Steve says, coming to an awkward stop in front of Billy. 

He’s still wearing his Melvald’s uniform. It’s fortunately far more acceptable than his Scoops Ahoy one, but it still makes him feel off kilter, just a little too far from his own skin to be standing on solid ground. He shifts from one foot to the other. “You’re not glowing anymore.”

Billy takes a second to respond, grinding his cigarette into the concrete beside him and rising slowly to his feet. He’s still wearing the Hawkin’s tracksuit, but he hasn’t put the baseball cap back on.

Steve is absurdly grateful for that—takes a handful of seconds to admire the curls and search for a hint of the angelic hue he saw earlier, but there’s no sign of it.

“It was short-lived,” Billy says, eyes roaming Steve’s face like _Steve’s_ the mystery here. “I wanna ask you something.”

“Well I figured you didn’t bring me out here for a staring competition,” Steve points out, nervousness bleeding into his voice. He shifts his feet again. “So, shoot. What is it?”

Billy turns just a little, just enough that his face is now reflected in the shop window. He winces, although Steve can’t work out why.

“Describe my face, Harrington.”

“Excuse me?”

“Just do it.”

It’s the tiredness in Billy’s voice that makes Steve shut up and do it. There’s no anger, just a bone-deep lethargy that’s like looking in a mirror.

“Okay, man.” Steve looks at Billy’s face, wondering how gay he’d sound if he described Billy’s lips. “You’ve got blue eyes, golden skin—just, you know, not _gold_ gold anymore. Your nose is kind of… if I say button, will you beat me up?”

Billy laughs and doesn’t beat him up, so Steve keeps going.

“Your lips are, like,” he swallows, his brain catching up to his mouth but it’s too late now. “Lips. You know. Red. And shit.” Billy eyes him curiously, so he blurts out. “And you’ve got big ears.”

And nice eyelashes, he fortunately doesn’t say, although he thinks it really fucking hard at least once a day.

“And what about in the mirror?” Billy jerks his head towards the glass. 

Steve frowns. “Is this some kind of joke? You look the same in the mirror. Just in reverse, I guess. Is that what this is about? One side of your face is asymmetrical? Don’t worry, man, we’ve all got that.”

“Just look in the fucking window.”

Tired. Resigned.

Steve looks in the window and reels back in horror. 

“What the _fuck_ ?” He looks from Billy to his reflection and back again. “What happened to you?” He feels the blood drain from his face. “Is it _back_?” 

Billy laughs, low and without humor. “No, Harrington. This is something different.” He turns to face his reflection. 

Both faces twist in disgust, but the one in the window… it’s almost proud, an air of something triumphant and sickly satisfied in its expression. Like it wants this.

“And the thing in the shop,” Billy continues slowly. “You really saw that?”

Steve is so unmoored by the face in the reflection, he doesn’t even question himself when he says, “Dude, you looked like an _angel_.” 

Both faces lose the disgust, eyes wide with shock instead.

Billy clears his throat and steps away from the window, so the only thing his reflection holds is a curly mane of hair.

“You’re the only one who can see it,” he says quietly. “The face in the mirror and… whatever that other thing was.” He shifts his feet, cocking one hip and staring straight at Steve like a challenge. Except it doesn’t feel like a challenge, and he sucks in a small breath before he speaks, almost like the next words hurt him, and says, “Will you help me fix it?” 

Steve’s never been asked to help before. He’s stumbled into the middle of it, or he’s been the only one someone can reach, or he’s been a last resort, but… he’s never been asked to help.

“Yeah, man,” he breathes. “Yeah, of course.”

Billy’s smile doesn’t glow, but it’s a near thing, just before it turns wolfish and proud. “Then welcome to mi casa, Harrington.”

* * *

Billy is acutely aware of Steve’s footsteps behind him as they climb the metal fire escape. When the landlord had given Billy the key, he’d explained how to open both the front and back doors and which parts of the termite-ridden floorboards to avoid, but it was easier to just come up the outside. On warm nights, he can sit out here and smoke—or, that had been the plan before Billy decided to run, and he doesn’t know what to think of any of it anymore.

“Watch your head,” he grunts as he ducks in the large, unlocked window.

No one would steal from him. There’s nothing to steal.

Steve ducks his head and follows Billy inside, silent as his eyes roam over the tiny loft.

“This is nice,” he says, assessing, in turn, the chipped paint on the walls, the broken dresser that was here when Billy moved in, and the open doorway at the back revealing a mattress on the floor. 

The weird thing is, he sounds like he means it. Billy files that thought away for later and crosses the room to the fridge.

“Beer?”

“Sure.”

Sitting beside Steve Harrington on a tattered couch in the middle of his own apartment is weirder than it has any right to be. A rat scurries in the walls behind their heads, and Billy winces. Steve doesn’t seem to notice. It’s strange how, with Steve in the room, Billy doesn’t really notice the water stains on the ceiling anymore, or the thick scar in the plaster where someone must have caught the corner of a table. He doesn’t notice the musty smell that suggests no one opened a window up here in years, maybe decades.

Instead, he notices the way the late afternoon sun streams in the West-facing window, catching the dust motes in the air and sinking slowly into the apartment. He notices the sound of the baby birds that live above the air con unit on his tiny balcony, and the loving song of their mom as she flies in to feed them. He notices how _clean_ everything is—at first because it had been drilled into him, and then because he realised it helped his head, to know everything was where it should be and nothing could hide.

His apartment _is_ nice. It’s clean and homely and even the mustiness is fading thanks to the open window and the candles Billy lights in the evening.

It’s even nicer with Steve Harrington sitting in it, and Billy quietly marvels that one small addition could influence how Billy feels about the entire place. Nothing changed, but Billy somehow did. For the first time, he feels a stirring of hope that Steve can fix this shit in the mirror too.

Steve clears his throat, and Billy realises he’s been staring—glaring, probably, as he struggles to think of a place to start.

“So, what’s with the face?” Steve asks.

“It’s not the monster.” Billy sounds defensive, even to his own ears. 

“Are you sure?” Steve’s face twists in concern, and Billy fights back the urge to punch a wall. “Because—”

“Trust me,” Billy growls, and then hides the aggression behind a long pull from his beer.

He expects Steve to argue, but oddly, Steve just waits.

Some people have been different with him since he got back from the hospital. Max is gentle with him. Her little friends have been polite. He guesses it’s because they know—really _know,_ unlike most people in Hawkins—and you can’t exactly look at someone the same once you’ve seen them drag thirty people to their deaths. So, they’re polite to Billy because it means he won’t hurt them, and Max is gentle with him because she’s still in shock from watching him die and she hasn’t remembered she doesn’t care about him, but the one person Billy really doesn’t get is Steve.

Steve isn’t polite and he isn’t gentle, but he looks at Billy in a way Billy has never been looked at before, ever since that night. Billy feels seen in a way that should be uncomfortable, but really, really isn’t.

He doesn’t know what to make of it, particularly when Steve is looking at him that way, now—attentive, waiting, witnessing.

So Billy clears his throat and says the truth, because it feels like Steve sees it anyway.

[“This is always what I see in the mirror,” he says, quick and without emotion. “Not usually _literally_ this, but it’s what I feel. This is me, Harrington.” He laughs, humorless. “I need it gone.”](https://feversxmirrors.tumblr.com/post/190790513360/inspired-by-socknonny-s-amazing-fic-for-the)

[Steve frowns. He pauses for a long time before he speaks, and when he does, he doesn’t acknowledge Billy’s confession at all. “And the glowing? What’s that?”](https://feversxmirrors.tumblr.com/post/190790513360/inspired-by-socknonny-s-amazing-fic-for-the)

[Billy shifts, uncomfortable. “It’s who I try to be.” He grimaces and corrects the lie. “Who I _tried_ to be.”](https://feversxmirrors.tumblr.com/post/190790513360/inspired-by-socknonny-s-amazing-fic-for-the)

He has a theory, although it’s weak. That woman looked so much like his mom, and the words she chose… He swallows. It’s going to be embarrassing as fuck, but he has to know. And he’s tried saying it so many times to his reflection while he waited for Steve. He knows it doesn’t work alone.

“Call me a gentleman,” he mumbles.

Steve chokes on air. “I’m sorry, do what now?”

“I have a theory,” Billy grits out. “I think it’s…” He can’t say it, not until he knows for sure. It’s too deep, too personal. “Just say it, but you’ve got to make me believe it.”

This time, Steve laughs, the sound high-pitched and tinged with hysteria. He shifts backwards on the couch, falling a little into the softness of the cushions where they’re worn out near the edge.

“Call you a gentleman,” Steve repeats, but there’s something in his voice, a curiosity. Or something. It makes Billy’s head snap up, the hot burn of embarrassment fading a little. “I…” Steve frowns, and Billy’s heart stammers at how fucking cute he looks as he does it. “I don’t think I can. Not if you need to believe it. But I can…” He clears his throat, a faint pink tinge rising along his collar. “If it’s some kind of compliment thing, I can say you were a good brother today.”

Billy’s mouth falls open, and he stares at Steve in astonishment. “Huh?”

“I saw you with Max.” Steve scrubs the back of his head, eyes sliding to the side. “Out the window. Something’s changed between you two, man. You can see it on her face—she adores you. Colour me surprised, Hargrove, but you turned into a damn good big brother.”

He sees it before he feels it, he’s still so shocked from Steve’s words. But the air changes colour, golden light bouncing off the curves of Steve’s face and filling the room. Billy wastes several seconds staring, stunned, at how beautiful Steve looks with his eyes wide in shock and a golden rim of light around him before he realises what it means.

And before he can work out how to frame the words “it worked!” with a mouth that feels increasingly impossible to operate, Steve shifts the entire world two steps to the left by taking Billy’s face in between his hands and kissing him.

* * *

It’s a friendly kiss—the type Steve does all the time when he visits relatives in Italy—but Steve isn’t sure he means it as a friend. He’s just so elated that it worked, still reeling from Billy’s quiet confession and all the messy, complicated things it must mean about how he sees himself, that Steve just doesn’t _think_. Billy’s face has got that golden, angel light again, and Steve’s heart skips out of his chest, and he wants to kiss him so he does.

And then his brain limps along to finally catch up, and he reels backwards in horror. It takes him a second—one painful second where he watches Billy’s face blanche and waits to get punched—but before it can happen, Steve pulls himself together, like the kiss was nothing, and grins. “You did it! It actually worked!” He smacks Billy twice on the shoulder—friendly and macho, knocking him into the back of the couch—and pulls back. “Are you gonna tell me what the hell happened then?”

The expression on Billy’s face tells Steve he would very much like for Steve to do that too, but he clears his throat and nods shortly. “So,” he says slowly, looking away from Steve. “When I was a kid, I used to do shit for my mom, before she left.”

Steve winces but stays quiet. Billy doesn’t even seem to notice, he’s so lost in his own thoughts. As he talks, the golden light grows stronger, filling the room until all the shadows are gone. The dark line of his eyebrows and lashes, becomes striking in contrast, and Steve can’t look away.

“I’d clean up for her. Cook for her. Do anything that would make her smile. She’d call me her _little gentleman_.” 

Steve wants to laugh, but he swallows it back at the look on Billy’s face and stays silent. He’s never seen Billy so serious. There’s no posturing, no lies.

“And when she did, it made me feel like this.” He waves his hand vaguely at his face. “It was the only time I wouldn’t look in the mirror and see a piece of shit.” The pause before he says those last words is so small, Steve barely notices. He wonders how much it cost Billy to say it. “And then she left, and I stopped bothering to try.”

The final admission hits Steve like a punch to the gut. It takes him a moment to realise Billy has finished talking.

“So you think this is just you?” He can’t get rid of the horror in his voice.

“I know it is, Harrington. I just don’t know why or how to get rid of it. Or,” he punctuates the point with a finger stabbed at Steve’s chest. “Why you’re the only one who can see it. I walked past a dozen people today with this shit glowing on my face, and no one even looked at me.”

Steve swallows. For some reason, the thought that he’s the only other person involved in this—that it’s somehow a secret they share—makes his heart stammer in a way that isn’t unpleasant. Then, he feels bad for turning Billy’s misfortune into something about him.

“And it happens when you think of your mom?” Steve asks. Even as he talks, the glow is fading. It makes his stomach roll with regret.

Billy grimaces. “I thought so, but she never called me a good brother. She wasn’t around for Max.”

“Is it what I said then?” Steve suggests. “Is it compliments?” Billy doesn’t look convinced, so Steve blurts out, “You have nice hair.”

Billy’s eyes dart up in shock, but the glow keeps fading and he snickers. “Nah, pretty boy, I don’t think it’s compliments. It’s like…” He trails off. “I’ve gotta feel good. You’ve gotta make me feel good.”

Steve swallows, his mouth suddenly dry, and ignores the rising flush on Billy’s cheeks as he realises what he said.

“Right.” Steve clears his throat. “Well, do you want to meet up tomorrow after work and try ex—” He stops just before he says _experimenting_ like a fucking jackass. “Try to test some theories?”

Billy nods almost too quickly. “Yeah. Yeah, come ‘round after work. I’ll be here.” Then he claps Steve a little too hard on the shoulder and grins at him, a feral glint in his eye. “Off you go, pretty boy. Better get home before dark.”

Steve rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t miss the genuine concern in Billy’s voice. Nor does he miss the fact that he is absurdly glad Billy hasn’t lost his bite completely.

* * *

Five minutes after Steve leaves, Billy smashes every mirror in the house. When he’s finished—there are only three; it doesn’t take long—he comes to a halt and stares blindly into the centre of his apartment. His knuckles slowly drip blood onto the linoleum of the kitchenette beneath his feet, and the tiny hand mirror he uses to shave out here, where the light is brighter than the bathroom, rests in a thousand pieces at the bottom of the sink.

He’s going to regret that, if only because he’s lost his litmus test for whether this stupid experiment works, but right now he doesn’t care. Steve kissed him and it didn’t mean anything, and Billy glows like a _god_ when a pretty boy praises him, and he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care.

Blood drips onto the floor, ticking like a clock, and Billy pulls his thoughts out of a spiral before he goes too far. He’s in this now, and despite the fear that burns him from the inside out, he can’t wait for tomorrow. Can’t wait to think of ways to test this thing out and, eventually, make it his bitch.

He washes his hands, plucking several fine pieces of glass free, and runs vodka over the wounds. The bathroom has black mold in it; he doesn’t know what he’s exposed himself to by bleeding all over the mirror.

When he’s done, he tries to make a list of things to test with Steve—phrases that will not only make the golden face return but the rotten one disappear.

But all that happens is his mind returns to the expression of awe on Steve’s face—the wonder he felt looking at _Billy_ —and Billy gives up. He falls asleep with his hand on his cock, pressing just hard enough to _feel_ but not so hard he crosses a line. His last waking thoughts are of the kiss, and his dreams turn it into something far more than friendly.

Billy wakes up with the same groggy head and aching sinuses as if he has a hangover, but the true cause is nothing so innocuous. The fogginess of his mind and head would be easy to cure if it were a hangover, because he isn’t a little bitch. Drink some water, do some weights, Tylenol is for pussies.

But it isn’t that easy, because at the root of this hangover is shame. He can still remember his dreams: the hot tease of Steve’s lips on his skin, the aching press of another boy’s hard cock against his own. His mind conjures the images with ease, even while he’s awake, but no matter whether Billy is awake or asleep, the shame still follows.

He pads across the sticky linoleum and pours himself a glass of water, trying to lose himself in the sound of the tap, the squeak of his bare feet against the lino. If he pauses for too long, the thoughts will rebel. His restless sleep, filled in equal numbers with pleasant dreams and burning self-hatred, will catch up to him all at once until his head pounds and his mouth is full of the acrid taste of bile. He knows. This isn’t the first time.

As he focuses on each new task—brush teeth, get dressed, eat—he slowly loses the overwhelming sense of something looming. When he thinks he has enough of a sense of himself again—the self he allows, the one _worth_ something, not the piece of crap he tries to hide—he grabs his keys and leaves for work.

He keeps waiting for someone to react. For someone to see him as he truly is, but even when he came back from the hospital, no one noticed anything out of the blue. They ate up his story about a virus, and never asked if he knew what happened to Heather, and the lies tore at him so fast he quit within a day. No one notices anything in this shit town; their heads are so far up their asses, minds occupied with who’s cheating on who and whether or not the government actually covered up that alleged chemical leak to realise the _lies,_ all of the _lies_.

Billy clenches his fist tighter around his wrench and focuses on the car in front of him. His new job pays well, and still no one can see two inches in front of their own nose, and nothing matters anyway.

“Hargrove.” His boss’s sharp bark of a voice makes him jump, nearly smacking his head on the underside of the car he’s rolled beneath. He slides out, scrambling to his feet and trying not to wilt under the glare of his boss. It’s too familiar, too close to home, and he wants to punch just as much as his body screams to run.

“This yours?” Dave holds up a nearly empty deck of cigarettes, and Billy fights to keep his face straight.

“Yes, Sir.”

Dave smacks it into his chest, forcing Billy to catch it before it falls. “You left it in the Sullivan’s back seat.” He sneers. “If you’re going to slack off on the job, try not to leave the evidence in the _pastor’s_ car.”

He turns away, already done, not caring about the answer. Shame floods Billy’s chest, hot and thick, and he forces out a “Yes, Sir,” anyway.

In the reflection of the car window beside him, the loose piece of skin above his cheek tears free and falls away.

He buys a six pack on the way home, so he has something to offer when Steve shows up. It isn’t much, but it makes him feel a bit more normal. Just a guy having another guy around for beers. No peeling faces or god-like glowing at all. After a couple of beers, he might even start to believe it.

And then Steve shows up at the window, and Billy has to pretend his heart doesn’t stutter violently, that his skin doesn’t itch with a need to be closer to this boy in front of him. It’s gotten harder, ever since he was possessed, to ignore his thoughts. His true ones. Emotions and longings that used to be so compartmentalised, Billy barely noticed them between the flurry of violence and booze he used as a cover are now given full reign to show up whenever they want. He looks at Steve and he thinks _pretty_ and _want_ and his brain no longer even bothers to pretend it isn’t true.

Billy wonders if it’s a side effect of the possession, or if it’s the simple fact that spending days trapped in his head, unable to access his own thoughts, has forced his brain to rebel. To refuse to hide from itself any longer, and now what Billy thinks, he knows. He can no longer lie to himself.

He doesn’t know which answer is better.

Steve grins at him and holds up the pizza box to the window, mouthing “Still hot!” from the other side of the glass. Billy thinks _pretty_ and _want_ and despite it all, he smiles and slides the window open.

“Hey, Harrington,” he says, the words emerging with surprising ease considering he’s never said them like that before in his life.

Steve blinks once, in clear surprise, and then gives Billy a smile that’s so equally shy and blinding, Billy gives up on trying to compartmentalise anything ever again.

“Hey,” Steve says, eyes falling to the cans on the bench. “Nice. I should have thought of that.”

“Can’t have the brains and the looks,” Billy says with an easy wink, throwing one of the cans to Steve, who catches it without fumbling.

Steve slides the box onto the bench, perches on one of the two available stools, and cracks open his can. Within seconds, he’s drained half the contents, leaving Billy spellbound by the hypnotic movement of his throat. Steve tilts his head back and burps loudly. The spell should be broken, but it isn’t, and Billy is so pathetic it isn’t funny.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Steve says, dragging a slice of pizza free and shoving the box towards Billy. “We know how to turn the glow off and on, sort of, which means we should try to get rid of the other face or whatever.” He takes a mouthful and keeps talking. It’s disgusting, and Billy still wants to fucking kiss him. Wants to fuck him so hard the neighbours move out. “And since we can only see it in your reflection, that means we need a full-size—” he breaks off, eyes landing on the shattered hand mirror at the bottom of the sink,” —mirror,” he finishes, eyes bugging comically from his skull. “Jesus, what happened?”

“Redecorating,” Billy says around a mouthful of pizza, pepperoni slices dropping onto the counter.

Steve stares at him silently for several seconds before he carefully sets his slice down and crosses the room to the bathroom.

Yeah, Steve’s not an idiot.

“Holy shit,” he calls from the open doorway, presumably at the sight of the thousands of broken shards littering the floor that Billy has yet to clean up.

Before Billy can stop him, he doubles back to the tiny door hiding Billy’s bed from the rest of the apartment. Billy’s heart lurches—this time in fear—and he stumbles to his feet to follow Steve inside.

He half expects his thoughts to be written on the walls. That Steve will take one look inside and _know_ how Billy fell asleep last night, what he dreamed. But all Steve cares about is the broken mirror above the vanity, and thank god Billy hid the magazines he sometimes uses in his weaker moments. Thank god discretion is drilled into his skin.

Steve turns to him, expression alight with something Billy can’t read.

“Dude…” Steve says so softly it makes Billy’s entire body light up with emotions so conflicting he might actually explode. “Are you okay?”

And Billy does explode. The question is so… not what he’s prepared to answer, and _not_ why they’re here, but Billy has already smashed everything he can in this apartment except Steve, and he won’t do that again. Not again. Never again.

So instead, he drops to the floor, memories of overwhelming heat and pain and _guilt_ consuming him as his body recalls the last time he broke like this, with Max at the sauna, and he grips his face with his hands and shakes.

Distantly, he knows he isn’t all right at all, knows this because the sensation of Steve’s warm hands tugging at Billy’s own, trying to free his face, makes him feel such opposing feelings, it’s like he’s torn in two. His heart surges with warmth and hope because Steve hasn’t left— _pretty, want_ —but the part of him that knows how wrong it is to want rises in response and beats him down. He can feel his skin tearing away beneath his fingers, no matter if Steve can only see it in a mirror, it’s still falling, rotting.

Billy shoves his head backwards, away from both his and Steve’s hands, and accidentally _thunks_ it straight into the door jamb. He winces, absently noting the concern on Steve’s face and the fact he’s still shaking, and closes his eyes.

“I’m fine,” he rasps.

Steve laughs so loud it sounds like it hurts. “If I’m going to help you, you’ve got to be honest with me,” he says when the incredulous laughter has stopped.

Billy lets that statement sit between them for a while before he finally opens his eyes.

“I’m peeling,” he says, looking everywhere but the deep brown of Steve’s eyes.

“Excuse me?”

“My face. It’s getting worse. The skin is rotting, and I can feel it under my hands now. It’s not just in the mirror.”

Steve blanches, but when he speaks, his tone is dry. “I’d suggest we check this out with a mirror, but some idiot broke them all.”

“Low blow, Harrington.”

“The truth hurts.”

Steve stands up and holds out a hand to help Billy to his feet. Reluctantly, Billy accepts and runs his fingers through his hair, curls scattering across his face.

“Lucky for you.” Before Billy can stop him, Steve pulls a compact from his pocket and holds it in front of Billy’s face.

It’s worse than he thought. There’s no skin left on his cheeks at all; the pale white of bone glints through remaining sinew. Experimentally, Billy opens and shuts his jaw, watching the muscle writhe over the skeleton below.

“Shame you can’t see this,” Billy grits out, forcing a smile. It’s one of his old ones, cocky and horny and just violent enough to make sure people get out of this way. Seeing it on this monster’s face is surreal. “It’s pretty sick.”

Steve’s gaze is steady, fixed to Billy’s face. He refuses to look at the reflection in the mirror. “Well, I don’t see it. It only exists in the mirror, which means it isn’t real.” He swallows, Billy’s eyes dropping to the movement again. “Why were you running away?”

Billy frowns, confused by the turn. “Because I shouldn’t stay.”

“Why not?”

Billy snorts, incredulous. “Look at me, Harrington. I know you can’t see it, but I’m a goddamn monster. I don’t have a fucking right to live here. Fuck, you saw what I did to them.” His voice breaks and he looks away.

Steve says nothing, and the moment feels charged, poised on the edge of something. Steve wets his lips, and when he speaks, his voice is so soft Billy nearly misses it. “You’re ashamed.”

A piece of Billy’s flesh falls away and lands with a wet splatter on the floor. Steve, of course, doesn’t notice. Slowly, Billy realises he’s shaking, not just with fear but with anger. He opens his mouth and forces the words to remain level. “Of course I am,” he grits out, voice low.

He doesn’t just mean for the monster, for everything he did under its hand. He means for himself, for his selfishness, his perverseness, his inherent _wrongness_ . He’s _wrong_. He came out wrong, and he needs to leave Hawkins because that wrongness is starting to show. But a beautiful boy is telling him maybe there’s hope, is telling him to stay, and so Billy stays.

Steve takes a breath and stands, stepping backwards. Weirdly, it looks like that small movement costs him. “Okay,” he says, hands on his hips like they’re back on the basketball court and he’s assessing the play. “So we don’t know how to stop it, but we know why it’s there.”

Billy’s stomach lurches again, hot and sluggish. The familiar pain rises in him, tells him to hide his face, to run. To submit.

“I guess,” he mutters.

He follows Steve back out to the kitchenette and drains his mostly full beer in one go. His legs lighten pleasantly and he cracks open another. They fall into an easy silence as they eat, Steve tracing invisible patterns on the counter in the condensation left behind from his can.

“Do you think about it a lot?” Steve asks suddenly. “The possession.”

Billy’s blood turns cold. “The hell does that mean?”

Steve shrugs, awkward. “It sounds like you’re not over it. When I’m stewing on something, my mom makes me talk it out.” He laughs in that self-deprecating way he has, eyes cast down, that tells Billy he’s embarrassed, revealing something personal. “It’s kind of dumb but it works.”

“This isn’t some break-up, Harrington.” Billy crushes the empty second can in one fist, glaring at it. “Do you even know what you’re talking about?”

“You killed people, Billy.” Steve’s words cut like a knife; Billy can’t breathe. “It wasn’t you, it wasn’t your fault, but that’s got to take a toll. Don’t you want to talk about it?”

“I told you,” Billy says, slow, menacing. “This isn’t the monster. This is older. And I don’t need your fucking couch therapy. I fucked up. I’m a big boy, I can live with that, I just need to make sure I don’t wake up looking like Freddie Krueger one day.”

Steve snorts, the pleasant flush of alcohol on his cheeks. “As if. You could never look like that.”

Billy stares at him, surprise cutting him off in his tracks, and notes the faint rise of pink on Steve’s neck. “News flash,” he drawls. “I already do.” He grabs the compact out of Steve’s hands, holds it up to make a point, makes sure Steve has to _look_ at it this time, and freezes.

The missing piece of flesh below his right eye is back. Pink and healing. He gapes, words failing him.

“What? What is it?” Steve sits up straight, already on high alert.

“It’s…”

“Is it worse? What did we do wrong?”

“No, it’s… better. A bit.” Billy can’t look away. “What did you say, Harrington? It’s gotta be something you said!” 

“Nothing! All I said was you could never look like a monster.” He breaks off suddenly, and Billy can’t look at him.

He feels flayed open, raw and vulnerable. He shoves the mirror aside before anything can change.

“Whatever,” Billy snaps. “Must be a coincidence.”

“Billy, I don’t think—”

“Shut it, Harrington,” Billy snarls, eyes snapping to Steve’s in a flash of rage. “It’s nothing!” 

Again, for what must be the hundredth time since he came back from the dead, it feels as if Steve sees straight through him.

Steve’s eyes drop to Billy’s lips, and in a clearly unconscious motion, Steve runs his tongue over his own.

“I don’t think it’s nothing,” Steve says with lips still glossy from a thin sheen of saliva.

Billy’s on his feet, stool clattering behind him, and halfway to the window he uses as a front door before he even knows what he’s doing.

“We’re done here, Harrington,” he snaps, throwing the window open so violently it almost shatters. “I’ll figure this out on my own.”

“I—” Steve begins, but Billy doesn’t wait to hear it.

“Out!”

Steve goes, and in his absence, the apartment seems suddenly devoid of warmth. He’s surrounded by dingy walls that are covered in stains, and the deceptive sparkle of light is only the flicker of a thousand shards of broken glass.

* * *

Steve told Billy he wasn’t—could never be—a monster, and the curse broke. It was only for a second, but Steve knows that’s what happened. When Billy believed him, believed that one small truth that Steve uttered with such conviction, his dying skin regrew.

Steve has never had that sort of strength before, to heal someone so greatly, and goddamn it’s heady.

He walks back to his car in something of a daze, mind whirring with plans, ways he can get Billy to calm down and let Steve help him again. Because Steve can’t walk away now, and not just because he’s finding it harder to pretend he isn’t interested in Billy for far more than curiosity’s sake. He wants to help Billy. Wants to heal him.

And, yeah, he’s interested in Billy for more than curiosity’s sake.

It was easy to ignore when Billy was just somewhere in the background of Steve’s life. He was hot, but so’s Rob Lowe, and it isn’t like Steve’s going to hook up with him any time soon.

But now Billy is there, in Steve’s thoughts, vulnerable in a way Steve never could have imagined. Max had suggested he was different now, and sometimes when Steve looked at him he’d get this weird feeling that Billy was revealing something secret, just for Steve, even from the other side of the room. But it was all in his head, then, so he could let it go.

This isn’t in his head. He kissed Billy, and then a day later he nearly _kissed_ Billy, and now he holds the secret to defeating this latest hocus pocus, and if Billy doesn’t let him do it he’ll explode.

By the time Steve gets home, he realises he left his compact there, and his entire body sags in relief. He’s turned up to girl’s houses on worse pretences. Lied for less. This will work, and once he’s there, he’ll find a way to convince Billy to let him help. For real.

He drops his keys on the kitchen counter and crosses to the fridge. There isn’t much inside, but he grabs out the milk and drinks it straight from the carton, ignoring how it mixes uncomfortably in his stomach with the pizza and beer. His parents aren’t home—obviously out at some party or other. Strangely, he almost wishes they weren’t. 

Steve almost wants to tell his mom what’s happening with Billy. The thought of talking it out with her, like they used to before things became so stilted between them, brings with it a comfort he hasn’t experienced in a long time. But it’s crazy; she’d never believe him. And even if she did… she has her own life. Her perfect, jet-setting life full of parties and friends. What does Steve have? Just a whole lot of shit trailing in on his shoe. A whole lot of crap he doesn’t have the right to infect her with.

He takes another swig of milk, angry for reasons he can’t explain. It’s already late, his evening with Billy having stretched longer than expected given how little they achieved, so when the phone rings, it startles Steve so much he spills milk down his front.

“Aw, man,” he mutters, slotting the carton back into the fridge and slamming the door.

He hopes it’s Billy, but of course it isn’t.

“Steve! My man! How’s it hanging?”

Despite himself, Steve grins. “Hey Dustin, what’s up? You’ve learned how to use a phone, I see.”

“We’ve decided the walkies are for _emergencies_ ,” Dustin insists. “There was too much chatter on the line.”

He sounds so disgruntled, Steve almost wants to ask, but he already knows he doesn’t have time for whatever that story is.

“It’s nine o’clock at night and this _isn’t_ an emergency?” Steve asks drily.

“Not strictly.” Dustin lowers his voice, tone hushed. “So, it’s Max’s brother’s birthday, right?”

Steve ignores the jolt in his stomach, the unwelcome union of milk and beer surging in shock, and adopts his dryest _King Steve_ voice. “His name’s Billy, and you know he can’t hear you right now, yeah?”

“Shh!” Dustin insists. “He might have super powers. We haven’t finished analyzing the data.”

“You haven’t— the _what_?” Steve’s head hurts. “Dustin, are you—?”

Dustin cuts him off. “Max needs to buy him something from the adult section at one of those gross stores he goes to, and obviously she can’t.”

“Whoa, what the hell are you shitheads buying him?” Then his brain connects the dots. “No way. I’m not buying Billy Hargrove a— a—” He can’t even guess what it will be, but his flaming cheeks have a few ideas.

“Chill, dude, it’s just a lighter from the metalhead shop in Indianapolis. And _we’re_ not buying it, Max is.”

“Through me,” Steve points out, but this result is already an undeniable improvement.

“Semantics, Steve. So can you take us to the store tomorrow morning?”

“Man, you guys don’t waste time. I had plans tomorrow. When’s his birthday?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Right. Tomorrow, it is.”

After they hang up the phone, Steve trails slowly upstairs and faceplants on his bed. It’s Billy’s birthday tomorrow, and he was planning on spending it with Steve, trying to solve this curse thing that only the two of them can see.

Is it even real? Or did the possession mess with Billy’s head somehow? He recalls the golden light, the Grecian god staring at him with Billy’s eyes, and concedes that no, it’s not in Billy’s head.

So, how can Steve make Billy believe he’s the god and not the monster? Because that’s the key, isn’t it? Billy’s admitted enough clues for them to work it out. He believes he’s a monster, for some reason, and now the Upside Down mumbo jumbo has messed with his head, turned his beliefs into reality, and is slowly destroying him.

Steve doesn’t want to know what will happen to Billy in real life if the Billy in the mirror rots away completely. He doesn’t think it will be nothing. It never is.

He falls asleep with his thoughts conjuring some bizarre, Dorian Gray-esque monstrosity in the corner of the room, like an English project from hell, and wakes with the triumphant dream-memory of Billy’s angelic visage winning the fight. His dick is aching hard in his sweats, and he palms himself quickly, bringing himself off in desperate, uninhibited strokes. Slides his hand beneath the fabric, smears precome all over until he’s slick and wet. His imagination helpfully supplies the right image—Grecian-god-Billy on his knees, mouth open and begging.

The whole thing is over in seconds.

Steve slides from bed to the shower to the car in less than twenty minutes, and by the time he picks up the kids, the hairspray smoothing the sides of his hair down isn’t even set.

“You dickheads are lucky I’m not working today. Could you seriously have left this any later?”

“We had a plan B,” Max says, like a liar, and Steve gives up and drives.

The present turns out to be pretty cool. It’s a silver zippo with a Mötley Crüe symbol etched on the front. Even Steve knows it’s cool. Once the kids point it out to him, discreet in intention only, not application, he waits until they leave the store and flags down the shopkeeper.

The chick’s bored gaze drifts to Dustin, Max, and Lucas—all crowded out the front around the trash can, so conspicuous it’s physically painful. She turns back to Steve, pops her gum, and asks, “Yeah?”

He points to the lighters and bongs stored in the smoking paraphernalia behind the counter and says, “The Metallica lighter. Thanks.”

“Pretty sure they said the Mötley Crüe one.” Her lips twitch, although she still looks bored.

Steve’s cheeks heat. “Yeah. Mötley Crüe. That’s it. Thanks.” He pauses, eyes straying to the next counter over for the tenth time since he walked in.

“And one of the snake earrings.”

“They come as a pair.” She sticks the lighter in a bag and regards him like he’s an idiot who doesn’t know how many ears he has.

“I just need one,” he says, stupidly, like an idiot.

She glances at his unpierced ears, then the bag with the zippo, then the earrings. New awareness crosses her face, and she smiles for the first time. “Tell you what.” She fishes both earrings out and slides them into a black mesh bag with a drawstring. “You can have two for one.” Her smile turns a little coy, knowing. “Maybe he can pierce yours for you, too, and you can match.”

Steve gapes at her, cheeks tomato-red, and hands over the cash without a word.

She winks at him as he leaves.

“Whoa, what happened to you?” Max asks, staring at Steve’s red cheeks and bursting into incredulous laughter.

“Oh my god, Steve, did she hit on you?” Dustin leans around and stares, _obviously_ , into the shop. “Did you get her number?”

“Holy shit. In the car, all of you.” Steve points at the car, shoving the bag with the zippo towards Max and thanking his lucky stars he already pocketed the earring before these terrifyingly attentive teenage brats could see it.

Earrings. Two. Because Billy is apparently Steve’s _boyfriend_ and they’re going to have _matching jewellery_.

He drops them at the arcade, mind fixated on when he can casually drop in to see Billy—alone on his fucking birthday—when he realises what the kids are saying. Billy is meeting them here. On his birthday.

The world just keeps getting weirder.

Steve parks the car and follows them inside. Dustin is so excited Steve decided to stick around, he doesn’t even question why, which leaves Steve blessedly un-scrutinised when he spots Billy and nearly has a heart attack.

Billy is lit up like a goddamn Christmas tree, except that makes the effect sound ridiculous, and it’s really… not. He hasn’t noticed Steve or the kids yet, too intent on the game in front of him, and Steve has to pause for a moment just to catalogue the sight. Billy is dressed in his usual double denim, inconspicuous tracksuit nowhere in sight, and his hair looks like it’s been styled for a party. 

Each curl is perfectly arranged, framing his face with that ethereal, golden light, and Steve is transfixed. Billy’s face is illuminated in the blue light of the arcade machine, but even in those unflattering conditions, he’s stunning. Dark-rimmed lashes, like he’s wearing makeup, full red lips. Steve’s imagination whirrs like crazy, wanting this Billy to _look at him_ , to smile at him, to give him any sign at all that Steve is worth sharing the same air Billy breathes. God, Steve would do anything for him when he looks like this.

“Billy!” Max’s delighted yell breaks Steve’s concentration before things get really embarrassing, and he shuffles forward to join the greetings. Billy eyes him with an unreadable expression, but only grins and claps him on the back when he mutters a “Happy birthday”.

“We got you something!” Max holds out the paper bag—Steve sees now she’s folded the bag in an intricate way so it looks like wrapping paper—and Billy stares at it in shock.

“Thanks,” he mutters, voice rough, and takes the present gingerly. He looks like he’s trying to be cool about it, hip cocked and eyebrow raised, but Steve knows Billy a little more now, and the effect is all wrong. He’s too careful with the gift, like it’s delicate—the gesture, if not the item.

The godly visage is already fading, still with no one the wiser, and Steve swallows his disappointment.

Billy’s smile when he unwraps the lighter is small but so real, Steve’s heart lurches in response.

“Thanks, shitbird.” He clicks the lighter and grins at Max through the flame. “Pretty rad.”

Max elbows him and then dives towards the game he was playing. “You high-scored!” She whoops, looking so proud it would be funny if Billy didn’t look the same himself.

Several dots in Steve’s mind connect as he looks from Billy’s fading glow to the high score on the screen, to the expression of pride on his face. An idea starts to form in Steve’s mind, a game, except he can’t think of a way to enact it because his traitor brain keeps reminding him of the sort of game Steve _wants_ to play. Which is selfish and wrong.

He clears his throat as the kids scatter for different machines. “Happy birthday, man,” he says quietly, handing over the bag before he can change his mind.

Billy’s eyes widen, and he undoes the drawstring on the mesh bag more carefully than he unwrapped the lighter.

When he sees the earrings inside, the golden light kicks into overdrive. Steve swallows thickly, watching as the rays of light fill every shadow in the arcade, the occupants stupidly unaware that anything strange is happening.

“Do you like it?” he asks.

Billy is already threading it through his ear, his dagger earring tucked into his pocket. It catches the light from his skin and sparkles.

“Sick present, pretty boy,” he grins. “Who picked it out for you?” But there’s something soft in his expression, something shocked, rattled in a good way.

“I did,” Steve protests with a laugh. He doesn’t know what possesses him to say it, except he feels a little drunk right now, a little lightheaded. “The girl at the shop thought you were my boyfriend. She suggested you pierce my ear, too, so we match.”

Billy’s mouth falls open in shock, but the expression is overtaken so quickly by one of heat and want that Steve nearly falls forward into it on reflex.

“Yeah?” Billy wets his lips, obnoxious and posturing and real all in one. “Bet you’d like that. It’d really piss off daddy, wouldn’t it?”

Steve swallows, his chest tight. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “Probably would.”

Max appears at their side, dragging them to the machines, but the moment isn’t broken. It builds and builds, simmering like an undercurrent behind everything else until it’s all Steve can see.

* * *

Never in a thousand years would Billy have thought he stood a chance with Steve Harrington, but he can’t deny those looks, what they mean. Steve wants him, he just doesn’t know how to say it.

Billy’s rotten face doesn’t return for a very long time, and Billy doesn’t even care about the reason why. Not now that he knows he isn’t alone in it. In wanting.

Still, when they arrive back at Billy’s apartment, things slow down between them. Steve’s darting glances turn nervous, rather than sneaky, and even Billy finds himself reverting to old roles. He props his hip against the counter, leans back so his chest and shoulders broaden, wets his lips. He takes the compact from the counter, where Steve left it, and hands it back, just for something to do.

“I have a theory,” Steve says carefully, sliding the mirror into his front pocket. He shuffles forwards and backwards, the movement almost imperceptible as he props his hands on his hips and pretends to be a solid force. It’s always been like that with Steve; a contradictory mix of badass attitude and nervous energy. Billy could get drunk off it.

“Yeah?”

“I think I can change how you feel.”

Does Steve even know how low his voice has dropped? The husky rasp of it? Billy’s dick stirs, and he doesn’t bother to hide the movement when he adjusts.

Steve watches him openly, doesn’t stutter, doesn’t blush. His eyes darken. “I think this is happening because you’re ashamed.” He swallows thickly. “I think you’d let me make you forget that.”

Steve doesn’t tell him not to be ashamed, which is good because Billy wouldn’t believe him and all their fragile trust would be broken. Instead, his eyes fall to Billy’s lips, and when he kisses him this time there is nothing friendly about it. He crowds Billy back against the bench, the sharp press of the counter digging into Billy’s spine, and he bites down onto Billy’s bottom lip and sucks it into his mouth, moans, chases the sensation with desperate whimpers.

And when Steve pulls back, panting, he says, “ _Fuck,_ you’re so good at that.”

Billy feels it before he sees it. It’s like the inner warmth that floods him when he hears the rumours spread around school—how good he is in bed, what he can do with his tongue—but it’s more because this time he actually cares who’s saying it. He stares at Steve, jaw slack, fingers clenched around the fabric of Steve’s shirt, knuckles white. He licks his lips. Before he can speak, the sun shifts from behind the clouds and fills the room with the golden light of dawn. But it isn’t the sun, and it’s a different sort of dawn.

Steve leans in and kisses him again, slower this time, each caress tinged with awe. “Maybe this is who you really are,” he says against Billy’s mouth, and Billy’s heart twists, aches so good.

Because maybe Steve is right. He never would have thought Steve would kiss him, never thought any of this was possible, so he’s already so far out of the realm of what is and isn’t, anything could happen. So he lets himself believe it. Lets himself think it’s true for the first time since his mom left and he gave up trying, gave up hoping. The glow fades, but the warmth remains, and Billy dives for the mirror—forgotten on the floor—and stares in disbelief.

“My skin’s back,” he says, unable to turn away. It’s still rotting, but it’s all back in place, and _Steve’s right_.

He looks up at the shocked expression on Steve’s face, like he hadn’t meant to do any of that, and Billy doesn’t know what to say. After a few minutes, the wires in Billy’s mind fire up again, and he forces himself to put up a front, a cover, like his heart isn’t going buck wild in his chest right now. He doesn’t think it works.

“Nice theory,” he manages to say, voice still rough with disbelief, with want.

Steve shakes his head, coming slowly out of his daze. “That wasn’t even it.”

Something about the way he says it, his eyes locked on Billy’s, pupils blown wide, makes Billy’s pulse race. His dick stirs, reading things in the situation that Billy himself can’t possibly believe yet.

“Yeah?”

Steve takes a step closer, even though they’re already impossibly close. “You said I had to make you feel good, that you had to believe it.”

Holy shit.

Steve smirks at the look on his face. “I think there isn’t much you believe, these days.” He reaches out to brush his fingers across the heated skin of Billy’s neck, eyes fixed to the movement. “Not without proof.”

“You think you’ve got proof, Harrington?” Billy doesn’t even know what he’s saying. He’s a mess. What is Steve suggesting?

“I think I could find some.”

If Steve told him to, Billy would drop to his knees right the fuck now. He’d do it, he’d do it in a flash, but there’s no way that’s what—

“Get on your knees.”

Billy drops.

Shock races across Steve’s face, along with something else, something impossible—awe. “Good boy,” Steve whispers, so soft it’s like he doesn’t even mean to say it.

But Billy hears, and something inside him _cracks_ , and he turns his face and moans into the palm caressing his cheek. He closes his eyes, and even through the darkness of his lids, he sees the golden light begin to shine.

“Fuck, Billy.” Steve’s voice is stronger this time, though still a little breathless. “Are you sure? Do you want this?”

_Does he want this?_ Billy bites down on his tongue just to keep from laughing, because he knows the sound would be tinged with hysteria. It would probably send Steve running, so he bites his tongue and, after the urge to laugh passes, wets his lips and says, voice low, “I want this.”

The hand caressing his face goes softer, sweet for a moment before it slides into his curls and tugs just enough to sting.

“Open your mouth,” Steve commands.

Billy does, and God it feels good to do something he knows is right. He doesn’t have to think, doesn’t have to question whether his actions are good or bad because Steve is telling him what to do, telling him what’s right, what’s good.

“Good boy,” Steve says again. There’s no longer any hesitation in his voice at all. Then he undoes his zipper with his free hand, takes his hard cock in his palm, and slides it into Billy’s mouth.

Billy’s done this before, but it feels like every other memory just disappears the second he wraps his lips around Steve. The sense-memory of other boys erases itself, flies away, and all he can think, feel, is the clean taste of Steve on his tongue.

He starts slow, absurdly terrified this will end if he steps one foot wrong, and slides carefully backwards, letting Steve pull free with a _pop_. His eyes lift to where Steve is watching, a heavy flush rising on his cheeks, and any thought of remaining slow disappears as well. Billy grasps onto Steve’s hips and sucks him down, hollowing his cheeks and laving the underside of Steve’s thick cock with his tongue. The clean taste of skin gives way to salt, to the thickness of precome, and Billy pulls away just far enough to lick slowly across the slit, his eyes fixed to Steve’s expression the entire time.

Steve fucking moans. The fist in Billy’s hair grips tighter, but he doesn’t guide him. He lets Billy set the pace, the tone, and as he does, a steady litany of praise begins to fall from his lips.

“Christ, you’re so good at this. Billy, holy shit. Keep going _just_ like that. Exactly what you’re doing. _Fuck_ you’re incredible. Billy, you’re incredible.”

The room transforms in the golden light, every darkened shadow and mildewed corner shattering in the warmth and magic that fills the space. And Steve… he can’t turn away. It’s clear in every breath, every moan, that he thinks Billy is beautiful. And if it wasn’t clear then, it becomes undeniable as he says it, breathless words appearing between moans—beautiful, gorgeous, so fucking pretty.

Billy believes it, because how can he not? It’s like every shadow in his mind has been chased away by the golden light as well. He forgets things he is so careful to never forget. Forgets what he’s done, forgets why he hates himself for it.

All he knows is this, right now. And when Steve gasps and spills over in his mouth, it’s all Billy wants to remember.

* * *

It’s like a switch goes off inside his brain, and as soon as he sees Billy go down like that, willingly falling at Steve’s feet, he loses the rest of his sanity as well. He barely knows what he’s saying, only knows he’s talking to Billy in a way he would _never_ normally talk to him, telling him he’s _good_ and saying shit like _good boy_ that he’s never said in his life. Shit, he’s never even said good girl; never said anything but the girl’s name. It’s crazy, it’s just… he somehow knows Billy wants it, needs it, and so—crazy as it is—all that shit comes pouring out.

And then Billy’s face transforms and Steve doesn’t need to think about what Billy wants anymore. Steve wants to _worship_ this face. Without even meaning to, he slows his movements right down, the gentle thrusts he’s been doing into Billy’s mouth become a slow, slick slide back and forth. He’s captivated by the redness of Billy’s lips as they wrap around his dick, as he feeds it to Billy inch by inch.

When he comes, it seems to last forever, simultaneously over too soon, but still he moves urgently to grab Billy, pull him to his feet, and guide him back against the counter.

Steve kisses him slowly, tasting himself for a few seconds, which is strange and somehow hot. Billy is oddly pliant beneath his hands, that glowing aura building and building the more he sinks into Steve’s touch. Steve doesn’t want to ruin the sight, and so he shoves his hand down Billy’s front and brings him off that way, fast and hard because that’s how Billy begs him to do it.

Even when it’s over, it doesn’t feel over. Too much has changed, and Steve doesn’t even know where to start. He only meant to create a game out of it, to reward Billy when he did well, to recreate that shining moment of pride from the arcade.

He hadn’t meant to enjoy it so much.

Billy shoves him away and zips himself up, eyes cast down, although the lingering glow tells Steve he isn’t angry. Probably just overwhelmed. Steve can understand the feeling.

“You figured it out, pretty boy. Looks like someone deserves a gold star.” Billy’s sneer and words are cutting, but his tone is too tinged with awe for it to hurt.

Steve nods. “How’s your face now?”

Billy snorts. “I have to wait for the glitter to fade before I know that.”

Still, he slides two fingers into Steve’s hip pocket and pulls the mirror free. Steve’s dick twitches in approval, and he moves around the bench so he can see Billy’s reflection.

Of course, he still glows like a god, but it’s his expression that Steve can’t look away from.

“Fuck, man,” Steve says quietly. “Are you crying?” He doesn’t mean to say it, but the wetness in the corner of Billy’s eyes floors him. Leaves him reeling with some emotion he can’t name but is already addicted to.

“Go fuck yourself,” Billy mutters, still staring at the golden face in the mirror.

“Or you could,” Steve points out.

Billy’s lip twitches, a hint of a smile, but he snaps the mirror closed before Steve can see it properly.

“So, you… feel good?” Steve asks, because he’s never been able to leave anything alone in his life.

“Real good, pretty boy.” Billy leers over his shoulder, but it doesn’t hide the sheen of water in his eyes or the white-knuckled grip of his fingers on the counter top.

Steve frowns. Without meaning to, he reaches out and brushes his fingers across Billy’s cheeks, eyes fixed to the steady illumination of golden light that dances across his skin as he does. “It’s fading slower,” he says, letting his hand fall. “Maybe that was all it needed.” His heart skips in elation that it worked, even as a strange sense of regret surges inside him. What does he have to regret?

Billy’s face does something complicated, and suddenly he shoves Steve backwards, making him stumble. “Just needed a good dicking down by the magnanimous Steve Harrington?” He sneers. “Get the fuck out.” 

Billy fumbles in his pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Steve thinks his hands might be shaking, but before he can see for sure, Billy pauses, looking up at him real slow, aggressive, like he used to be. “Are you fucking deaf?” he asks, cigarette dangling from his lips. “Get out.”

The glow has faded completely. Steve wants to stay, wants to see if he can bring it back. He’d do anything to bring it back. But he knows when he’s not wanted.

He goes.

* * *

Billy stares at the space where Steve disappeared for a long time. It feels like everything inside him is shifting and resettling into something new. On the surface, it feels good; the golden light has lasted longer than ever before, and when he looks in the mirror Steve left behind, _again_ , his face is… enchanting. It doesn’t even look like his own. It belongs to someone different, someone who never fucked up like Billy did. Someone who deserves to be here.

He waits until the last signs of the face he wants more than anything have faded, and watches. Slowly, the rotting skin reappears, but it’s more subtle than before. There’s something less _real_ about it.

His mouth twitches, relief spreading throughout his body. He can’t hold it back.

It takes him several seconds to realise what’s wrong.

The face in the mirror doesn’t smile back. The rotting skin doesn’t grow, the bone peeking through the gaps doesn’t spread, but somehow, this is worse.

Billy can’t move. His fists clench at his side, breath rising in ragged, shallow gasps as his body tries to fight something it can’t possibly fight. He brings his fist up in front of his face, but the mirror image is still. It blinks at him, passive, watchful, its hands firmly by its sides.

Against all odds, he doesn’t smash the mirror. He sets it carefully down and walks away.

Billy doesn’t know why he seeks out Steve at the grocery store the next day, but there he is. He’s still wearing his grease-stained jeans and blue button up—undone all the way to reveal a white singlet—and most people give him a wide berth.

Not Steve. Steve does a double take when he spots Billy through the window, cheek slipping from the fist it was propped on. His lips part, and for a moment, Billy thinks his pretty boy is going to blush.

Then Steve’s gaze heats, and Billy wonders instead what the hell he’s gotten himself into. He pushes the door open and struts inside, making sure to linger so Steve can admire him the full length of the walk to the counter. When he gets there, he props his elbow on the bench and leans in, grinning.

“Come here often, sweetheart?” He leers, trying and failing to make Steve blush.

He knows he’s acting like a jackass, given that he threw Steve out less than twenty-four hours ago. But the face is back. The skin sags further than before, and the reflection _still_ won’t move. It just watches him. Silent. Passive.

It makes Billy’s skin crawl, and he needs it gone. Needs that angelic glow, needs it to _stay_ this time and banish that creepy piece of shit for good.

Steve leans further onto the counter, propped on his elbows as he glares Billy down. A little thrill of _something_ courses through him; he’d forgotten what it was like to really be challenged.

“If I come over tonight,” Steve says, eyes fixed to Billy’s, “are you going to get your panties in a twist and kick me out again?”

“Don’t act like you don’t like it, you kinky little shit,” Billy mutters, wetting his lips as his eyes drop to Steve’s mouth.

“You’ve no idea, Hargrove,” Steve says softly. “But I’m not doing this if you’re going to flip on me again. I don’t have time for that bullshit.”

Billy can’t look away from Steve’s mouth. His thoughts stray to images of those lips wrapped around his dick, but the thought quickly fades to be replaced with something better—Billy on his knees again, sucking Steve down while Steve threads strong fingers through his hair and tells him he’s _good_.

He can’t say it out loud, can’t promise in words what Steve needs him to promise because the admission reveals too much: that he needs Steve, that he needs him enough to care about him. So, instead, he nods, just once, and lifts his eyes to Steve’s. A flicker of surprise crosses Steve’s face, and Billy hopes it’s enough.

The silence stretches between them with a tension Billy can’t identify. There’s something he wants to say, but he can’t quite catch hold of what it is, only knows that something is propelling him forward, impulsive and a little desperate.

When Billy speaks, his voice is raspy. “Let me pierce your ear.”

What the fuck is he saying?

Steve’s eyes widen, and for the first time, he looks out of step. “What?”

Billy grins, feral and wide despite the pounding of his heart. “Unless you’re too much of a little bitch.”

Steve’s hand comes up, unconsciously, to his left ear. He’s nervous, lips parted just enough to reveal a glimpse of red tongue. “Okay,” he says, and Billy’s dick twitches.

“You’ll need a stud for a few weeks,” Billy explains. “I’ve got a spare.” He leaves the rest unsaid. Doesn’t offer Steve the second earring. Doesn’t wait for him to ask. “Tonight,” he says, then he smacks his hand down once on the table and leaves.

Billy uses the glass door to catch the reflection of Steve’s face, the confusion overlaid with _heat._ Something about the reflection is strange, but he can’t work out what it is until he’s already through the doors and halfway up the street. Billy’s reflection hadn’t been visible at all.

He slows to a stop, ice chilling his veins. There’s a window to his left. If he looks, he’ll know. He just has to turn his head.

Billy decides it was down to the angle of the reflection, doesn’t turn, and continues walking.

* * *

By the time Steve leaves work, his left ear hurts from pinching it so much. He doesn’t know why Billy’s suggestion— _demand_ —unnerved him so much, but he can’t get it out of his head. Billy, with his hand resting against Steve’s jaw, his other hand poised with the red hot pin above Steve’s ear. The pain of it. The aching slide of the earring being pushed into the fresh wound.

His brain runs the tape on repeat, and it makes his dick stupidly hard, and he almost forgets they have a goal: get rid of the mirror face. The golden face can stay, obviously. Steve doesn’t need to ask Billy if the mirror face is worse again; the answer was in his expression. The dickhead’s posturing conceals precisely nothing now Steve knows what to look for. Besides, why else would Billy want him back so soon after kicking him out?

Steve’s brain whispers a few impossible answers to him, beginning with the piercing and ending with the second earring that lies, unused, somewhere in Billy’s house.

As he shuts up the shop, he thinks about what they should do tonight, because he knows what they’re doing works. He just needs it to work better. Stronger. Permanent.

He intended to make a game out of this for Billy, something with rewards because rewards seem to work, and tonight is as good a night as any to do that. He pauses, hand on the key, and then races back inside. The blinds are drawn, no one can see him, but still he looks back at the window repeatedly as he grabs items from the hardware aisle. No one will know what they’re for, but… He shivers.

Billy likes rewards. He likes… challenges. He likes to be strong. And he likes to suck Steve’s dick.

Steve finishes shoving the items into his bag, promises the empty shop that he’ll come back and pay tomorrow, and leaves.

A strange mood settles over him as he walks down the street to Billy’s apartment. He feels restless, almost guilty, but there’s no reason to. His parents don’t keep tabs on him anymore, so no one knows Steve is here. And it isn’t like he’s doing anything wrong; he’s doing something _right_ . They’re going to fool around, and Steve is going to praise the shit out of Billy, and Billy’s going to get that mad glow about him so strong the other face— _poof_ —disappears.

Steve dreamed of that face last night. Billy was lying on his back in Steve’s bed, legs spread, while Steve made him feel so, so good. And the face didn’t fade. The glow disappeared, but the essence somehow lingered in the cut of Billy’s jaw, the brilliance of his smile. Steve chooses to take it as a premonition, and he chooses to make it happen tonight.

When he arrives, the window is open. He climbs in, realising at the last second he didn’t bring any food with him—he’s a bad guest—but it doesn’t matter because the second both feet are on the ground, Billy is on him. He crowds Steve back against the wall, his mouth urgent and demanding. Steve’s bag drops to the ground as he grabs Billy’s jaw in both hands and kisses him so hard the world disappears.

The clunk of his bag hitting the floor, full of wood and rope and a sanding block because Steve’s an unsexy dork who worries about splinters, makes Billy pause. He steps back and eyes the bag.

“Jesus, Harrington, what have you got in there?”

“Ideas,” Steve says, voice thick.

Billy’s eyes widen, but all he says is, “Fuck, pretty boy.”

So, Steve picks up his bag, leads Billy into the bedroom, and begins to share his ideas. When Billy sees the rope, his pupils go so wide, so dark, that Steve doesn’t bother to explain about the wood yet. He lets Billy run his fingers over the material, lets the rapid rasp of his breath grow shorter, and then he takes the rope and shows Billy what to do with it. It’s incredible to think Billy is new to this, but Steve doesn’t have to ask to know that he is, and when Steve stops to think about it, he realises—who in their right mind _would_ suggest tying Billy Hargrove up. Even with everything Steve knows now, he half expects to be punched for the audacity.

Which is why, when Billy raises his hands slowly above his head, eyes fixed to Steve’s as Steve loops the nylon rope tight around Billy’s wrists, it’s almost too much. All Steve can hear is the sound of both their breath, panting, loose. So gone, they’ve forgotten how to speak.

There’s no bedframe in here, so Steve straddles Billy’s chest and reaches down to loop the rope around the rough hewn packing crates that lift the mattress a few inches from the ground. The second he draws the rope tight, Billy sucks in a sharp breath beneath him, and Steve realises how close Billy’s mouth is to Steve’s chest. He pauses, leans back to pull off his shirt, and returns to tying off the knot. Billy’s warm breath hits Steve’s nipple, and in the privacy of this brief moment, hidden by Steve’s body, he shudders, eyes rolling up into his head.

“What’re you waiting for, Hargrove?” Steve asks, voice low.

Billy fucking moans—so light and broken, Steve would actually call it a whimper—and then the wet heat descends on Steve’s nipple. He barely manages to keep from pressing into it, from rutting his dick against Billy’s stomach. He ties off the last knot and braces himself on the wall, head resting against the cool paster.

“Fuck yeah, Billy,” he whispers. “That’s so good.”

Billy laves his nipple, tracing a hot line to the other side, licking, sucking, stopping just short of biting. His arms strain against the ropes, biceps bulging, and Steve knows he could crack the packing crate in two if he wanted. Knows Billy knows it too.

Knows they both know Billy won’t do it, because he’s being a good boy.

Steve whispers it in his ear, moving down the bed so his nipples are out of reach now. Billy arches against him, turns his face into Steve’s neck and sucks there instead, desperate.

“So good for me,” Steve breathes, hands roaming in the newly unoccupied space between Billy’s back and the bed.

His nerves are on fire, and the way Billy ruts against him isn’t helping any of the stamina Steve prides himself in. He pulls back, catalogues the aching need in Billy’s eyes. Smiles.

“Want to play a game, Billy?” he asks, soft.

Billy wets his lips and nods, so Steve pulls further back, slides off Billy’s jeans, leaves him naked on the bed. He slides his palm along Billy’s thick cock, watches him buck up into it with glazed eyes.

“Slower,” Steve whispers.

Billy’s eyes widen as he gets it—realises this _is_ the game—and slows down. Steve doesn’t have to pretend to let the note of pride and awe leak into his voice when he praises Billy. And the glow is immediate. Billy’s face shines as Steve instructs him—faster, slower, softer—bringing him so close to the edge he’s almost in tears. 

The room ignites with a soft, pulsing glow that seems to radiate from every corner, and Billy’s face is heavenly. Arched cheekbones, dark-framed lashes, lips so full Steve wants to bite them to see if blood spills free. He wants to claim him, own him, because he knows with absolute surety any sense of claiming this man is an illusion. Billy is so far above him, over him, better than him that every word of praise that drops from his mouth feels as though it’s to himself, not the god laid out before him. Good boy, Steve; you’re pleasing him. Healing him. He’ll love you after this. He has to.

Steve orders Billy to go faster, watches the wildness overtake his eyes, and then commands him to stop.

He shows Billy the wood from the bag and the extra rope. Both their dicks twitch as Steve uses the bar to spread Billy’s knees, tying them open. He doesn’t use the sanding block, and as the splinters drive into Billy’s skin and he takes it _so fucking well_ when Steve enters him, the litany of praise that drops from Steve’s lips feels more like repentance.

Billy comes first. His jaw goes slack, his eyes glazed as he fixes them on Steve’s face, holding it all through his orgasm like Steve is somehow _worth_ looking at, worth being there in that moment. The heat and longing in Billy’s eyes sends Steve over too.

They lie there for hours, and Billy doesn’t kick him out, and the glow from his angelic face never dims.

* * *

Billy dreams. At first, the dream is soft and light, filled with an iridescent sunshine that emits peace and warmth. He basks in it, laying back and thinking—at last, this is what he needed.

But then the vast spread of white nothingness gives way to… shadow. A desert emerges from the mirage, and Billy’s warmth turns to unbearable heat. The parched dryness of his mouth aches, twisting his perspective in on itself so that what was once an oasis of peace becomes a hellish landscape he can’t escape.

He’s alone, and then he isn’t. A creeping shadow stretches before him but the sun is halfway down the horizon in front of him and shadows shouldn’t stretch that way. The shadow crawls to its feet, and Billy recognises his own face. His body fills with ice-cold fear, remembering the monster, remembering how it all began, but this is different. It’s somehow worse. This thing belongs to Billy; it isn’t controlling him, but neither can he control it. And as he watches, it stands tall against the setting sun and walks away.

Billy wakes in a cold sweat, reaching instantly for the mirror. When he holds it up with shaking hands, the rotten face is nowhere in sight. The only face that greets him still glows with an inner light, features carved from heavenly stone. He can relax. They somehow won; the rotten face might even be gone for good.

Billy falls back against the pillows, into the sleepy arms of Steve as he pulls Billy reflexively closer. He puts the mirror down and shifts closer to the warmth. But he doesn’t relax.

Billy wakes to the sensation of lips trailing down his rib cage, kissing softly while warm hands peel back the covers and drift lower. He smiles into the pillow, his chest light with some warm feeling he can’t name. He lets Steve push him gently onto his back, lets him wrap sleep-soft lips around his aching cock, and whimpers.

Steve pulls slowly off. “Is that good?” he teases.

Billy nods, guides Steve back down with a push of his hand. Just before he goes, Steve whispers, “Your angel face stayed.”

Billy’s entire body ripples with pleasure, with elation. He loses himself to the feeling of Steve sucking him, licking him. When he comes, it’s like every nerve alights with heat, an intoxicating wave of _rightness_ that is somehow better than the orgasm itself.

Steve switches their positions, guides Billy down, and watches him with heavy-lidded awe as Billy demonstrates exactly what his tongue is good for. As Steve gets closer, the room filling with soft moans, Billy can feel the golden light surging _inside_ him, even before it radiates out into the room. It’s like sunshine in the middle of winter, six am on Christmas morning, every good thing in the world packaged up and centred inside him. It’s blinding. He sucks Steve down and twists his palm and rides the pleasure of Steve’s orgasm as if it were his own. It somehow is his own, wrapped up in the unearthly divinity of this face, this face that somehow truly belongs to him.

Work somehow feels bearable. His boss glances at him, frowning like there’s something odd about Billy but it’s beyond the realm of his comprehension. Then he leaves him to it. The acrid scent of motor oil surrounds him, familiar and oddly comfortable as he settles over the hood of a nineteen sixty nine F-150. He’ll be here for a while.

Except… Billy locates the problem immediately. There’s an engine leak right there, and what could have been hours of diagnosing turns into seconds. He sets to work removing the blown head gasket, and loses himself in the monotonous familiarity. When he’s done, he scrubs his hands on his pants and crosses the garage to find Dave.

“Need a new head gasket,” he says, jerking his head towards the F-150. “Where are the order forms?”

Dave’s eyebrows shoot up, and he looks like he’s about to question Billy’s assessment, but then Billy holds up the cracked old part and Dave blinks slowly, eyes falling to the piece. “Good job,” he says reluctantly.

That warm feeling from last night surges in Billy’s chest. The garage is lit up like a Christmas tree, even if Dave can’t see it. But he must see something, because his face twists into a smile and he claps Billy on the back. “I’ll get the forms. You saved us a few hours there, Bill.”

He tries to hide the smile, but he can’t. It lasts the whole day, right up until Billy looks into the bathroom mirror and sees everything he’s been pretending doesn’t exist.

* * *

Steve spends so long checking his reflection in the mirror beneath the till that he nearly misses the end of his shift. But he can’t help it. He keeps adjusting his ear this way and that, imagining the earring dangling from it, imagining the pain of Billy piercing it. They didn’t get around to it last night, but tonight they will. He’s sure of it.

One customer misunderstood and assured him no one would notice one of his ears was bigger than the other, and that only sent him into more of a state.

But finally he decides the left ear looks best—and he’s going to fucking do it, he’s going to ask Billy tonight—and the last customer coughs pointedly and he realises, holy shit, he spent the whole day fantasizing about Billy sticking a needle through his ear.

Still, at least he isn’t dreaming about fucking Billy, because if he’s in this much of a daze from the piercing, he doesn’t want to know what he’d be like with visions of last night going on a loop through his head. Billy is like nothing Steve ever imagined in bed, but when he thinks about it, he probably should have.

The problem is, all of Steve’s assumptions were based on how Billy acts with girls, but they shouldn’t have been. They should have been based on how Billy acts with _him_.

Rapt attention, an edge of violence, but still so, so fucking pleased with everything Steve gives him—Billy fucks like he’s taunting him, and it’s fucking intoxicating.

He locks the front door and wonders if Billy will be home already. Wonders if it would be weird for Steve to turn up at his work and walk him home. Probably. Steve still doesn’t quite know where the line between fucking and a relationship ends. He never had that trouble with girls, but then, he never had a girl who fights off the whole world even while Steve is fucking them into the mattress.

In the end, he realises his feet have taken him naturally toward _Dave’s Garage,_ where Billy works. He lets them keep going, watches the brightly coloured shops give way to the smell of motor oil and grease. His brain races, trying to think of an excuse to meet Billy here, until he shakes his head in irritation and decides he doesn’t need one. They’re just two friends meeting up. It doesn’t have to mean anything. It _doesn’t_ mean anything.

Steve swallows thickly and walks in the open garage door. He looks around for Billy and stops dead at the sight that greets him. It takes him several seconds to process the scene, and then he’s running, heart pounding, tearing, hands fluttering uselessly around the chest of the man Billy is holding upright. There’s nothing he can do, nothing either of them can do as the man’s face turns slowly blue. Because it isn’t Billy’s hands around his neck, choking him, like Steve had thought for a single, horrifying second. It’s his reflection’s, while Billy himself tries to save him.

The reflection in the glass window of the office area doesn’t mirror Billy. It isn’t even in front of him. It grins, manic, at Steve while the light in the eyes of the man who must be Billy’s boss begins to fade.

“Oh God,” Billy is muttering. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

Steve doesn’t think Billy even knows he’s here. He turns to the reflection, a sick feeling sinking in his stomach. The Billy who isn’t Billy grins wider.

Anger flares in Steve’s chest, and before he knows what he’s doing, he’s punching the glass, shattering it. The man falls to his knees, gasping long, ragged breaths of air.

“Thank—” he gasps, “—you.” And then he collapses with his hands braced on his thighs, staring ahead at the ground.

Billy notices Steve then, his eyes snapping to him without recognition for several seconds before understanding settles across his face. He shakes his head, expression still slack with panic, and Steve doesn’t know what to do except stare back. His entire body is shaking. If he were to hold his palms out in front of him, he doesn’t think he could keep them steady.

He tries, and through the hazy fog of adrenaline, he realises they’re cut open and bleeding from the glass. The man on the ground looks up, seeing Steve’s hands and turning in confusion to the window behind him.

“You seizured,” Billy says, his voice rough and shaky. “While we tried to hold you.”

The man nods, as if that makes sense. Which maybe it does. Because phantom hands around his neck, with no one nearby, would have disoriented him enough that the truth is a blur. Thank God he didn’t turn around and see the reflection. Steve tries to catch Billy’s eye, to share in the sense of relief even if he can’t quite feel it yet, and that’s when he realises what’s strange about Billy’s face.

He’s still glowing. Even after everything, all the time that’s passed, Billy’s face looks like the face of a god.

Billy helps the man stand, and after several whiskeys, everyone decides there’s no need for doctors. But they close early, and his boss tells Billy to go home. Steve thinks Billy might walk off on him, the way he strides so quickly down the street, but when he catches up, Billy doesn’t tell him to fuck off.

The windows beside them reflect Steve, but he’s alone.

“I know where it’s gone,” Billy says, seeing where Steve’s eyes have gone.

Steve doesn’t ask; he just follows.

A couple of people look at them strangely, but Steve can’t tell if it’s because they’re still covered in adrenaline-sweat, eyes darting and fearful, or if the lingering glow of Billy’s face is starting to become visible to the rest of the world, too.

From the way the women look at Billy, jaws slack and a curious furrow in their brow, he thinks it’s the latter. And that’s good, right? A bit weird, and difficult to explain, but since they all seem affected in the same way Steve is, maybe no one will care how paranormal it seems. And it means they _won_. Means Billy triumphed by defeating the morbid reflection and keeping the god-like features.

So, why does Steve feel so uneasy?

Billy glances back at him and frowns, coming to a sudden stop as his eyes fix to the bleeding cuts from Steve’s hands. “What the fuck?”

Steve looks down and blinks. He’d already forgotten again. Carefully, he holds them in front of his face and inspects the cuts. “I think all the glass is out. It’s fine. I’ll wash them soon.”

But Billy shakes his head, stepping in close to Steve’s space, crowding him back against the shop-front behind them. His expression is difficult to read, particularly with how distracted Steve feels looking at his perfect features. Billy’s fingers close around Steve’s palm, surprisingly tender despite the roughness of his skin and the grease-stains across them. He pulls a beaten-up drink bottle from the bag slung over his shoulder and pours it over Steve’s hands.

Steve hisses in pain, wincing as the cuts rinse clean. Billy follows the path of the water with his thumb, gently brushing across the wounds. It’s all Steve can do not to shiver.

Then, he takes a thin bandage roll from his bag and begins to wind it around Steve’s hands. Steve doesn’t ask why he keeps it on him. All his energy is currently devoted to not betraying the violent thudding of his heart by leaning into Billy’s touch. It’s not like sex, where you can blame the connection on selfish, impersonal desire. There is nothing here to hide how much Steve just wants this, wants Billy.

“Steve!”

It’s almost comical, how quickly they break apart when Steve’s mom appears at their side. But she doesn’t seem to notice their panic. Her attention is on Steve’s hands, horrified as she reaches out and grabs them, too rough.

“What happened?” Her expression is so guileless, so shocked, he almost wants to sink into her arms and tell her the truth. But he can’t. He never could.

“Grazed them skateboarding.”

He hasn’t skateboarded in five years. 

His mom tsks him and shakes her head. “I’ve told you it’s too dangerous. When will you listen?”

The light from Billy’s face flickers across the space between them, and for just a second, it looks like Steve’s mom is the golden one, lit by a halo of light. But it doesn’t feel like it does with Billy; this time, the thought of someone being so good, so untouchable _…_ It hurts. The feeling is so familiar, he reels backwards, yanking his hand out of her grasp and staring at her in horror.

“Steven!” His mom chastises him, firmly snatching his hand back and resuming her assessment of the bandage Billy tied. 

She doesn’t notice how he shrinks away from her, but Billy does, tilting his head to the side and studying Steve. Steve can’t look at him. His thoughts are whirring so fast, he can’t work out what they mean. All he knows is the sick feeling in his gut when he looks at his mom, the way he feels like she’s so far above him he could never reach her.

Finally, she nods and steps back. “I’ll see you for dinner?” She runs a hand over his hair, excessively nurturing, like the gesture means something. Like looking after Steve wouldn’t just leave her with soiled hands, her perfect world tainted.

Steve shrugs noncommittally, and once she’s gone, he charges ahead without looking at Billy. For the first time, he’s glad of the strange distance that still lies between them, because Billy doesn’t ask, and Steve doesn’t tell. He doesn’t know what he could say, even if he did want to. All he’s left with is a steadily growing sense of unease that he thinks he might once have been able to push away, but no longer can.

The streets pass by quickly, each curious face blurring into the next as Steve focuses on checking each window, each puddle, for signs of the monster. At first, he thinks Billy is leading him home, and then he realises he’s taking Steve home in another sense, to a place Steve has wanted to ask about but hasn’t known how.

He’s heard things from Max, when she was still worried Billy would die and the thought of keeping his secrets had become as meaningless as his death. If this _is_ where they’re going, Steve can’t help but wonder: what if they’re too late?

His palm twitches and he wants to do something crazy. Something guided by the wild fear in Billy’s eyes, the sick guilt, and the way Billy’s hand once reached for Steve’s, abortive at the last moment, as they both caught sight of a horror poster by the cinema and thought it was a mirror. Steve clenches his hand into a fist to keep from reaching out and doesn’t do anything to ruin what they have. Whatever that is.

As they approach Cherry Tree Lane, he picks up a broken piece of fence post, hefts it like a weapon, and steels himself for whatever they find inside.

They reach the house, and the door swings open with a quiet creak, already unlocked. Steve’s heart drops down somewhere into his stomach, thudding loudly and making him nauseous. Are they too late?

Does he care?

The creeping, quiet thought shocks him. He’s never thought anything like that about anyone. Does this make him a bad person? Is he _bad_ for wanting awful things to happen to awful people?

The confusion leaves him reeling for just long enough he trips over the body on the floor without seeing it first. He stumbles, catching himself on the corner of the TV, and chokes back a whimper.

“Billy!” he yells towards the kitchen, where Billy went first.

Thundering footsteps announce his presence as he charges into the room and grabs hold of the doorframe to keep from stumbling. His eyes go wide, filled with horror, and it’s all Steve can do to turn away and look back at the unmoving figure of Billy’s dad.

Then it does move. The man breathes, and Steve’s knees give out beneath him so he sags against the TV while Billy lets out a sound of relief he surely meant no one to hear.

Someone speaks. It’s Billy’s voice, but Billy’s lips are closed, and it takes Steve three panicked circles on the spot to locate the source. The half-empty tumbler of whiskey grins at him, Billy’s rotting features staring out at them as he speaks in a voice that bubbles and echoes as though it’s spoken underwater.

Whiskey-filled. Reverberating off glass.

Something about the face’s choice of location sends Steve reeling, and it suddenly feels as though, instead of looking at Billy’s bizarre other face, he’s looking at Billy’s dad’s. 

That’s when it hits him: these faces don’t just belong to Billy. Steve has seen them in the mirror, he’s seen them in his mom’s polite smile, he’s seen them on friends when arguments turn ugly. 

But he doesn’t know what to do with the information, or if there’s even any point to knowing it. And why do both he and Billy _see_ those faces now?

“I saved him for you,” the face repeats, and Steve’s blood chills.

He turns, slowly, to Billy, and finds him white as a sheet, hands shaking. Billy opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. The face in the glass begins to laugh, deep and bubbling and horrible, and it’s like something inside Billy snaps. His face grows rigid, and he runs from the room, snatching up car keys from the hallway. He runs so fast, Steve almost doesn’t catch him, managing to climb into the passenger side of the truck in the driveway only because it’s already unlocked.

Billy doesn’t even wait for him to sit. He floors it, while the door is still open, sending Steve tumbling backwards and grappling for the handle.

The almost-empty house fades into the distance behind them.

* * *

Billy grips the steering wheel of his dad’s truck so hard his knuckles turn white. He’s never driven his dad’s truck before, and if he’d had to guess what circumstances might change that, he would have said it was the day he finally cracked and took off, leaving his asshole of a dad in the dust behind him.

Instead, he’s stolen it to save Neil’s life, and he doesn’t know what’s more tragic—the truth or the past that never happened and now never will.

He’s never escaping this town. He doesn’t deserve to.

At first, he isn’t certain where he’s driving, but then the scenery starts to make sense and he recalls a long road ending in a motel he never made it to. He clenches the steering wheel, chest tight with anger and fear as he recalls just how much he wanted to listen to his reflection in the glass. Just how much he wanted to lay his hands around his own father’s neck and finish what the worst of him had started.

Because it _is_ him. He’s known it from the start, and no amount of running will ever change the fact that the face in the mirror belongs to Billy. But Steve has taught him something new, something impossible. The golden face can be his, too.

So long as he destroys the monster first.

Flickering golden light fills the cab, casting shadows across their faces. At least, it does across Steve’s. Billy still has no reflection, and he’s sick of chasing it. It’s time to bring the monster to him, and he can think of no better—or safer—place than here, where the worst of him once won, his weakness allowing the shadow-monster—the _other_ monster—to possess him. He’ll defeat himself here, or not at all.

He pulls in front of the warehouse and kills the engine.

Beside him, Steve leans forward, hands propped on his knees as he studies the warehouse. Billy doesn’t know if Steve knows what this place means, but he thinks from the expression on his face that he might. It’s different being here in the daytime, with someone by his side, but he knows when they go inside, the grimy windows will hide the light. It may as well be night.

“Is this…?” Steve asks slowly, eyes sliding to Billy’s.

Billy nods sharply, jaw clenched, as he tries to make himself move, to open the door.

Steve’s eyes widen, lips shaping to an almost amusing ‘o’ of understanding. “This is where it began.”

“No,” Billy spits, too vicious for the gentle calm of the car. But his head is full of too many memories, too many names slung his way by whiskey-soaked breath, before he was even old enough to understand them. It didn’t begin here; it began years before here. This place is just the first time he ever lost control of it. He throws open the car door and steps out. “No, but this is where it ends.”

He strides across the overgrown path and into the familiar entry. Steve’s footsteps slow behind him as they cross the threshold, but it’s Billy who stutters to a halt. The room is bright, impossibly bright, and it’s only when he turns and sees Steve’s stunned expression that he realises the light is coming from him.

Something in him hardens with resolve, and he steels his expression into a familiar one of triumph and power. He’s won; the other person just has to submit.

Billy turns on his heel and whoops so loudly a couple of doves startle and fly out a hole in the roof. “Come out and play, tough guy!” Billy yells, leering down at the shining reflection in the grimy, shattered glass of a broken window. It litters the ground at their feet, crunching like gravel beneath his boot, and after a moment, he sees it. The face grins, delighted, and then disappears.

Steve chokes in alarm, and when Billy looks up he sees the monstrous face reflected in every window around them, high above their heads at the top of the walls. For a moment, he’s frozen in place, unable to move, but then he sees the malicious triumph on its features, how it thinks it’s _won_ even though the golden light of the room is only getting stronger, and he’s filled with a fury so unbearable, he picks up the closest piece of broken rubble and hurls it at the window. It shatters into a thousand pieces, and Billy screams at it, deranged even to his own ears, “I’m going to fucking kill you!”

He grabs block after block of broken palings from beside his feet, pieces of rock, broken concrete, and hurls them at the windows. He feels Steve do the same beside him, crushing the broken shards beneath the heel of the fence post he collected—what feels like days ago, although it was less than an hour. And it’s working, he knows it’s working, because every corner of the room is lit up like the sun, every shadow chased away until this place from Billy’s nightmares has transformed into a temple purged by violence and illuminated in a godly light.

And then the laughter starts. There isn’t a single mirror or reflection left in the building, but the monstrous face reappears before them, in the centre of the warehouse: a single shadow in a room of light, made new into flesh. And he’s lost, he’s somehow lost, because when Billy charges at it, tackling it to the ground, every blow he lands burns white fire into his own body, because they are one and the same, and to kill this monster is to kill himself.

Billy falls to his knees. The monster lies before him, laughing through blood-stained teeth, clutching at its stomach with fingers etched with a thousand cuts from the glass beneath them. He feels a hand clasp his shoulder, but it’s only on reflex that he turns to Steve. Nothing matters anymore. Steve is saying something, and he tries to focus. When the words penetrate his skull, his blood turns to ice and he realises some things still matter.

“Where did it happen?” Steve asks again, his palms a steady anchor on Billy’s shoulder. 

He doesn’t want to answer, but his eyes dart to the stairs, where the monster—the _first_ monster—took him. “It doesn’t matter,” Billy rasps. “It’s nothing to do with this.” This is old, he doesn’t say, far older. This is _me_. I was bad before the shadow ever got me.

“It has everything to do with this,” Steve argues, hauling Billy to his feet.

Billy realises too late what’s happening, and he tries to escape, tries to will Steve not to lead him to those steps by tugging backwards, stumbling away, back towards the deranged copy of himself still laughing on the ground. “No,” he mumbles through a split lip—he landed several good hits before the pain was too much. “Not again.”

Steve’s hands are gentle, but they still lead him forward. “I’m with you. You have to face it.”

“Why?” Billy yells, shoving him away and nearly losing his balance. His chest heaves, breath ragged, and even Steve looks on the edge of madness. He almost wishes there was still a mirror in sight so he could see the two of them side by side, covered in blood and dirt and sweat. “It doesn’t _matter_ . It’s nothing to do with this. I was like this _before_.” He jabs a finger towards the doppleganger.

“That’s _exactly_ why it matters,” Steve yells. To Billy’s surprise, he steps back into Billy’s space, eyes hard, tone unyielding, but against all odds, his voice is soft. “It matters because you see it as proof.”

The words land like they’re undoubtedly meant to—a blow to the centre of Billy’s chest. But Steve isn’t done. 

“You think everything that happened here proves what you already believed—that you’re bad. You’re rotten.” Steve’s eyes are no longer hard; they shine with something too bright to look at. But Billy doesn’t turn away, because the next thing Steve says is, “I’m sorry.”

The world goes still. “What?” Billy’s voice cracks.

“I’m sorry I helped you believe it.” Steve’s hand comes up to touch Billy’s face, fingers just a brush of skin against skin before his palm falls by his side again. “I was… awed by this face, by the thought that we could make it stay.” He swallows. “By the thought that someone who looked like you could want me. I think that’s why I could see both faces. I’ve seen them before. One in me, one in… someone else. But I just made things worse. I made you think you had to be _this_ to be loved, that you couldn’t just be Billy.”

“What are you saying? We _did_ make it stay, Harrington.” Billy spits out, taking a step back. “If I’m gonna have to live with old fuckface over there in my life, at least give me the god face, too.”

Steve shakes his head, eyes darting to the monster and back. The monster is quiet now, watchful, still breathing heavy from Billy's assault. If circumstances were different, Billy would almost be smug at the proof he can take it so much better than this weakass rotten side of himself. But circumstances aren't different, and all he feels is shame that this thing even exists. That even the golden face he still wears isn't enough to control it.

“If this face was everything you thought it would be,” Steve says softly, eyes skimming across the golden light, “then why do you still feel like _this_?”

Billy can’t breathe, can’t think despite the deafening silence that falls with Steve’s words. There’s a logic to what he’s saying, a logic Billy doesn’t want to see. It hurts, somewhere deep inside him, where he keeps the knowledge that killing this monster will never make the pain go away. Will never make him believe he’s good.

“You aren’t _good_ , Billy,” Steve says, the words cutting into him like knives. “And you aren’t _bad._ Trying to turn you into one only made the other stronger as well.”

The golden light flickers, shadows returning to the room for just a second. The figure on the floor, so long silent and untouchable, groans in pain. Billy knows what he has to do, and he grieves it with everything in him.

“I have to kill them both,” he says quietly.

Steve nods, but then something strange crosses his face. “You nearly died,” he says slowly, like it means something.

“I _did_ die,” Billy corrects him, flashing the kind of bright, wolfish grin that only appears when everything is crumbling. “Then I came back.”

Steve’s eyes go wide with shock, and then the expression passes and he seems to take the knowledge in his stride, just like he does with every other piece of madness this town has to offer. 

“That’s why we can see the faces,” Steve says, nodding to himself and staring over at the other Billy, lying on the floor. “You died, and it brought everything to the surface. They’re fighting over who gets to be you.”

“You didn’t die,” Billy points out. “Why can you see them?”

“Because…” Steve fluffs the front of his hair, nervous, unable to quite meet Billy’s eyes. Then he sighs and looks up, and this time it’s Billy who wants to look away. “Because I really want to know who you are, too.”

The words hit Billy with force, and he struggles not to let it show. Judging by the softness in Steve’s face, he doesn’t think he succeeds.

Behind him, the monster on the floor struggles to sit up, but it's too weak. Still, they can't have long before it recovers. Billy has to make a decision. Steve sticks his hands into his pockets and waits. Minutes pass, and then Billy finally turns to confront the one part of Hawkins he’s been too scared to revisit. 

With Steve at his side, he slowly descends the stairs.

At the bottom, it’s just a room. There’s no lingering evidence of what happened here, no scent. Billy stands in the centre and stares as the hidden corners are bathed in light. Slowly, the light fades and fades and fades until there’s nothing left. He thinks he hears a hint of laughter from the stairs above them, abruptly cut short. Strong arms come to circle around him, but Billy still feels the loss. It’s an ache deep in his bones. Something he’s spent his whole life searching for, only to give away when he finally had it.

Because Steve is right. What Billy wants is a feeling, not a face, and even when he glowed like the sun, he couldn’t find that feeling. Couldn’t destroy the shame. 

“I’m not good,” he says quietly.

“You’re not _bad_ , either.” Steve says the words Billy is desperate to hear but can’t say himself. “I know what you did. I know everything you did. It doesn’t mean shit about you, doesn’t mean shit about whether you’re worth something.” His hands slow their movements, gentle circles trailing along Billy’s back. The room is so quiet, Billy hears him swallow, hears the thickness of emotion in Steve's voice even if he doesn’t know what it means. “When you put someone on a pedestal, you’re really just driving yourself into the ground to keep them there. Even if the person on the pedestal is yourself.”

Billy doesn’t know how long they stand there, Steve’s words echoing in his mind. Steve knows—more than anyone—what he’s done, what he can do. He’s seen it all, and he hasn’t left. Steve is still here with him, in the room where it all began.

Within it, Billy can hear an echo of another time. _You’re my little gentleman, Billy_. He’s never been a gentleman. Even when he let himself sink into the praise, cocooned in its warmth, he never believed it. A tiny voice in his head would always argue the words, always search for proof that it was false—that the only thing that ever made Billy feel good was a lie.

For the first time, he chooses not to believe the quiet whisper, either. He stops searching for proof—good or bad. It was a stupid fucking game anyway.

“Stop playing the game, you reckon, Harrington?” Billy says, eyes cast down at his feet as his lips twitch in a reluctant smile. He’s speaking to Steve, but his words are directed to someone else, to the ghost of a woman who isn’t there. “Trust you to think of that.”

“Only way to win,” Steve mutters, his hand finding Billy’s and squeezing tight.

Eventually, they leave the warehouse behind. It’s just a warehouse, and he’s just Billy.

* * *

They end up at a diner far from home, out on the I-69. It’s practically empty, the only customers a middle-aged man reading three newspapers at once and a young girl doing cross-stitch in the back corner. Steve feels drained, wrung-out. There’s a weight in his limbs that wasn’t there before, except… he thinks it was. He thinks he just never noticed it. Shoved it away so he could pretend everything was fine.

Everything isn’t fine. Everything hasn’t been fine for a very long time, longer than the Upside Down. The Upside Down just… proved it… Nancy proved it. And Steve’s been living with that proof for too long, just like Billy has.

So he throws it out the window. Accepts it and lets it go, because he’s sick of trying to be worth something to people who are no better than him. To people he’s _decided to believe_ are better than him. He glances across at Billy, lips wrapped around the straw of a milkshake—the most childish and unexpected thing he’s ever seen Billy do. He sees the worn lines of exhaustion on his face, and the weary acceptance.

Steve’s own face probably looks the same. But below the exhaustion is a creeping sense of euphoria—something real and solid, and so much better than the weak hold Steve has always tried to keep on other people’s approval.

“Can I stay over tonight?” Steve asks suddenly, a fry paused halfway to his mouth.

Billy looks up at him, eyes wide. His lips are still wrapped around the straw, only a little slack as he stares at Steve. “Uh…” He leans back in his seat. “Yeah, if… you want to.”

Billy can’t hide the question hidden inside it, and Steve can’t pretend his heart doesn’t race as he realises how much this means. He can’t hide the smile on his face as he answers, “I want to.” He pauses, heart racing as a thought occurs to him. “Maybe you can pierce my ear.”

The hesitation disappears from Billy’s expression, replaced with surprise quickly followed by a wicked grin. “I can do it for you now, pretty boy.” His eyes flick to the girl in the back corner. “If you’re not too chicken-shit.”

Steve gapes at him. The thought of doing something like that, when his knuckles are still split open from fighting the latest hocus pocus shit to grace his town, is heady. It makes him feel light with laughter, with the pure stupidity of it when he feels like they should be sombre and reflective instead of sipping chocolate milkshakes and shoving needles into Steve’s ear.

Fuck it.

“I’m game if you are, Hargrove.”

Billy’s eyebrows shoot up, the laughter that escapes him as lighthearted and carefree as Steve suddenly feels. He stands up abruptly and strides across the diner, leaning onto the table with one hand as he speaks in a low voice to the girl. She frowns at him, completely unaffected by his posturing, but eventually shrugs and hands him a needle from her cushion.

When Billy turns, his eyes catching the light, Steve’s stomach flips over. He follows him into the bathroom, its flickering fluorescent light buzzing a low hum above their heads. When the door bangs shut behind him, Billy flicks open his lighter, the orange flame burning the needle red-hot.

Steve braces himself on the sink, staring into the grimy mirror in front of him. Billy meets his eyes, his expression oddly soft compared to the daring grin from only minutes before. There’s no sign of the rotten face or the golden one; two tired, human reflections stare back from the glass. Billy doesn’t ask Steve if he’s sure, but as his left palm comes up to cup Steve’s jaw, tilting his head to the side, he pauses.

Steve thinks he might know why.

“I trust you,” he says, answering the unspoken question hanging in the air between them.

Billy exhales, heavy with relief, and drives the needle through Steve’s ear. It fucking hurts, but it’s over quickly. Billy’s hand is steady and sure, stopping the second it’s through so it doesn’t even graze Steve’s neck. When he slides it free, chucking it onto the lip below the mirror where it scatters droplets of blood onto the chipped blue tiles, he replaces it quickly with a stud he must have been carrying with him.

Steve straightens. The silver stud catches the light, shining and weirdly badass. He thinks about it sitting in Billy’s pocket for days, both of them waiting for this moment, and something warm fills his chest.

Billy steps back, admiring the reflection, and then leans into his other side, tongue wagging over his lip as he grins and whispers in Steve’s ear. “Looking hot, pretty boy.”

Steve agrees. There’s a droplet of blood pooling below the stud, and his lobe feels numb, and Billy’s lip is still cut from his fight in the warehouse, but here in this grimy diner bathroom, it all somehow melts together into something equally broken and wonderful.

They’re both so, so messy. And so real. And it feels so fucking good.

Steve drops in at home to grab an overnight bag before meeting Billy at his apartment. It’s the early hours of the morning, but they’re planning to sleep the day away and deal with the rest after they wake up. 

His mom is in the kitchen, pouring a cup of coffee, and she looks up in surprise. “I thought you were still sleeping! How are your hands?” She puts the pot down and comes over, her face twisted with concern.

“They’re fine,” Steve says, beginning to dismiss her, and then he gets a different idea. “Hey…” He swallows, suddenly uncertain. “I got my ear pierced.”

His mom stares at him, mouth slack. “You did _what?_ ”

Steve laughs and tilts his head. “Check it out. I think it looks cool.”

Her eyes bug out of her head as she stares at the tiny piercing, but after a few stilted seconds, she starts to laugh. “Oh my gosh, Steven.” She shakes her head, still laughing, her smile warm. “Don’t tell your father.”

Steve grins at her, already backing out of the room. “Our secret.”

She taps the side of her nose, winking as she picks up her coffee mug and takes a sip. The morning sun beams through the lace curtains, filling the room with warm, golden light. It’s cosy and safe, and somewhere across the other side of town is another window streaming with light just like this one, waiting for two boys to fall asleep in a beam of sunshine. 

Steve runs up the stairs to grab his bag and go meet Billy.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find me over on tumblr as [socknonny](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/socknonny).


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